Turkish crypto exchange Thodex CEO gets 11,000-year sentence for $2B rip-off: Report
The former CEO of Turkish crypto exchange Thodex, Faruk Fatih Özer, was sentenced to 11,196 years in jail by a Turkish courtroom on costs of “establishing, managing and being a member of an organization,” “qualified fraud,” and “laundering of property values.”
The Anatolian ninth High Criminal Court sentenced Özer alongside along with his two siblings to the identical jail sentence of 11,196 years, 10 months and 15 days in jail together with a $5-million tremendous, reported Turkish state-run information company Anadolu Agency.
The Turkish crypto exchange was one of many largest digital asset buying and selling platforms within the nation earlier than it abruptly imploded in 2021. The exchange halted providers on the platform with out prior discover, and the founder, Özer, fled the country together with customers’ belongings totaling $2 billion in crypto. At the time, Özer had refuted all claims of a potential exit rip-off.
The fugitive founder was lastly detained in Albania in August 2022, the place he was serving a jail sentence, earlier than he was extradited to Turkey in April 2023 on costs of fraud and cash laundering. Özer was already in jail for failure to submit tax documents since July, whereas the latest conviction comes for defrauding clients.
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The founding father of the crypto exchange claimed in courtroom that he and his household are dealing with injustice. He mentioned Thodex was only a crypto firm that went bankrupt and had no felony intentions. A Google-translated model of Özer’s courtroom assertion learn:
“I am smart enough to manage all institutions in the world. This is evident from the company I founded at the age of 22. If I were to establish a criminal organization, I would not act so amateurishly. What is in question is it is clear that the suspects in the file have been victims for more than 2 years.”
The long-drawn-out case in opposition to the Thodex crypto exchange had 21 defendants, 5 of whom attended the courtroom listening to in particular person. The courtroom acquitted 16 defendants of “qualified fraud” attributable to lack of proof and ordered the discharge of 4 defendants. The different defendants within the case acquired various levels of sentences based mostly on their involvement within the fraud.
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