Investing.com – Turkey has long faced very high inflation, which recently even reached 80%. This was a perfect starting point for a cryptocurrency scam that took off in 2017 with the establishment of Turkish cryptocurrency exchange Thodex.
The continuous rise in prices has allowed the crypto exchange to experience tremendous growth, as it has managed to attract 700,000 customers in a very short time. Customers who no longer wanted to see the value of their savings collapse.
The exchange also promoted different crypto projects that were to be funded through the issuance of new tokens. In this context, funds have been raised for projects which, apparently, from the outset were destined never to materialize.
It didn’t take long for the first complaints to be filed against director Faruk Fatih Ozer. The exchange was shut down and Ozer moved overseas in April 2021.
According to Chainalysis, the damage amounted to approximately $2.6 billion, which is why he was the subject of an international arrest warrant via Interpol. The Istanbul prosecutor’s office is asking for up to 40,564 years in prison for the 21 defendants in total, as reported by Bloomberg.
Ozer has now been apprehended in Albania, ending the cat-and-mouse game with investigators looking for him in four different countries.
In addition to the prison sentence actually imposed, it will also be interesting for those injured to know if at least part of the lost funds will reappear.
By Marco Oehrl