Former Head of Turkish Crypto Exchange Thodex Sentenced to 11,196 Years in Prison
Former Thodex cryptocurrency exchange CEO, Faruk Fatih Ozer, has been sentenced to 11,196 years, 10 months, and 15 days of imprisonment, as reported by the BBC, citing Turkish media sources. Similar sentences were handed down to two relatives of the former crypto tycoon of Turkey, his sister Serap Ozer, and brother Guven. Additionally, the court ordered the defendants to pay a fine of 135 million Turkish lira (approximately $5 million USD) to the affected depositors. Sixteen other defendants in the Thodex cryptocurrency exchange sudden collapse case were acquitted due to lack of evidence.
Initially, state prosecutors had requested a more severe sentence of 40,562 years for Faruk Fatih Ozer. Turkish news agencies stated that the defendants were individually sentenced for numerous crimes against 2,027 victims, leading to the total cumulative prison years.
Such extraordinary prison sentences are a common occurrence in Turkey since the abolition of the death penalty in 2004.
In his defense during the trial, Ozer, once considered a financial genius and benefactor, claimed he had been framed and that he wouldn't have acted so amateurishly if his intentions were truly criminal.
Thodex, one of Turkey's largest cryptocurrency exchanges, was founded in 2017. The cryptocurrency stored on Thodex was used by government entities as a hedge against inflation and the sharp devaluation of the Turkish lira. However, in March 2021, the exchange froze withdrawals, purportedly due to a cyberattack, and subsequently halted all exchange operations without explanation. The exchange's founder, Faruk Fatih Ozer, fled to Albania. In April 2021, it was revealed that Thodex had transferred $125 million in Bitcoin to the American exchange Kraken just before its closure. The blockchain monitoring company Whitestream described this as a "laundering operation," akin to cases where executives embezzle client funds.
In August 2022, Faruk Fatih Ozer was arrested by local police on an Interpol international warrant and extradited to Turkey.
As a result of the exchange's collapse, over 400,000 clients were unable to access assets worth $2 billion.