Prosecutors had asked for an even longer sentence.
Faruk Fatih Özer, the founder and CEO of the now-defunct cryptocurrency exchange Thodex, was sentenced to 11,196 years in prison by an Istanbul court for crimes including aggravated fraud, money laundering money and organized crime. His sister Serap and brother Guven were also found guilty and received the same prison sentence.
Thodex was founded in 2017 and found success during a period when Turkey’s state currency, the lira, was experiencing a period of rapid inflation. Turks began to view cryptocurrencies as a seemingly safer option than the fluctuating lira, especially when it came to savings, and Özer became something of a financial celebrity in Turkey. Thodex collapsed in April 2021, with Özer initially claiming that investors’ money was safe, before fleeing.
Almost immediately afterwards, Turkish police arrested dozens of Thodex employees and seized the company’s computers. It turned out that in April 2021, Thodex transferred bitcoins worth around $125 million to Kraken, a well-established cryptocurrency exchange in the United States. Interpol then issued a red notice and Özer was found in Albania and extradited.
“I am smart enough to lead any institution on Earth,” Özer told the court, as reported by the state news agency Anadolu Agency. “It is evident in this company that I created at the age of 22. If it were a criminal organization, I would not have acted so amateurishly.”
The total amount of money lost in Thodex’s collapse is unclear and estimates vary widely. In court, prosecutors identified 356 million lira ($43 million in 2021) in losses, but other reports speak of $2 billion and a Chainalysis study estimated the value of cryptocurrencies lost to Thodex at $2.5 billion. “It is worth noting that approximately 90% of the total value lost in 2021 can be attributed to a fraudulent centralized exchange, Thodex, whose CEO disappeared shortly after the exchange disrupted users’ ability to withdraw money. funds,” said the study author. indicates this report.
These long prison sentences have become common in Turkey since the death penalty was abolished in 2004. Believe it or not, the Özer siblings got off easy: state prosecutors wanted to set an example in this case and requested a sentence of 40,562 years. The good thing for Özer is that if he behaves well, he will come out in five or six thousand years.
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2023-09-10 09:05:42
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