The Founder of Thodex Cryptocurrency Exchange Sentenced to Over 11,000 Years in Prison
The founder of Thodex, a collapsed cryptocurrency exchange in Turkey, was sentenced to 11,196 years in prison by a Turkish court on Thursday for several counts of crime including fraud.
A court in Istanbul sentenced Faruk Fatih Ozer, who operated the exchange until it collapsed in 2021, and his two siblings to similar jail terms for crimes including aggravated fraud, money laundering, and leading a criminal organization, Bloomberg reported.
Ozer went missing when Thodex, once one of the country’s largest exchanges, abruptly halted trading in April 2021, causing more than 400,000 users to lose funds. He then reportedly fled the country to Albania but was extradited back to Turkey earlier this year.
Massive rug pull
In 2021, Turkish police reportedly detained 62 people in the initial investigation.
The prosecutor’s indictment from April 2022 estimated that total losses at the exchange were about $24 million, but Chainalysis estimated losses at $2.52 billion — which would represent 90% of the total value lost globally to rug pulls in 2021.
