Last Updated on September 8, 2023 by Bitfinsider
A Turkish court sentenced Faruk Fatih Ozer, the operator of the cryptocurrency exchange Thodex until its collapse in 2021, to 11,196 years in jail for a variety of offences, including fraud.
After rendering a decision late on Thursday, the Istanbul court found Ozer and his two siblings guilty of aggravated fraud, directing a criminal organisation, and money laundering. The verdicts were imposed on identical terms of imprisonment.
At his last hearing, Ozer, a high school dropout who started Thodex in 2017 and ran away to Albania when Thodex failed, didn’t seem to be sorry.
Ozer said in court, according to the state-run Anadolu Agency, “I am smart enough to lead any institution on Earth.” “This business, which I founded at the age of 22, is proof of it. If this were a criminal organisation, I wouldn’t have behaved in such a clumsy manner.
It’s still unknown how much money investors lost overall when Thodex failed. Although the Turkish media has claimed sums as high as $2 billion, the prosecutor’s indictment places them at 356 million liras ($13 million). The value of the cryptocurrency lost at Thodex was estimated by Chainalysis to be $2.6 billion.
After a protracted legal proceeding, Ozer was extradited from Albania to Turkey early this year.
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