Faruk Fatih Ozer, the founder and former CEO of defunct cryptocurrency exchange Thodex, has been sentenced to 11,196 years in prison for defrauding investors of billions of dollars. The Anatolian 9th Heavy Penal Court handed down the sentencing on September 7.
Ozer Found Guilty of Fraud and Money Laundering
According to a Bloomberg report, Ozer got jailed after the court found him guilty of fraud, money laundering, and heading a criminal organization.
All charges were related to the collapse of Thodex two years ago. Thodex was a Turkish cryptocurrency exchange that abruptly discontinued operations in April 2021, leaving over 391,000 customers with losses. Ozer disappeared shortly after and fled Turkey with at least $2 billion worth of cryptocurrency stolen from Thodex users.
He was later arrested in Albania in August 2022 and extradited to Turkey in April 2023 after a prolonged legal process.
During the final hearing, Ozer appeared in court unrepentant.
“I am smart enough to lead any institution on Earth. That is evident in this company I established at the age of 22. I wouldn’t have acted so amateurishly if this were a criminal organization,” he said.
Other Verdicts
Meanwhile, Ozer was not the only one sentenced during the final hearing. Several other accomplices associated with the collapse of Thodex also received jail terms. Ozer’s sister, Serap Ozer, and brother, Güven Ozer, were also sentenced to 11,196 years in prison. A judicial fine worth roughly $5 million was also imposed on the convicts.
The Thodex scandal is just one of multiple high-profile crypto scams that have occurred in recent times. Earlier this year, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) charged Irina Dilkinska for her role in the $40 billion “OneCoin” pyramid scheme that defrauded over three million investors.
The DOJ alleged that Dilkinska, the former head of legal and compliance for OneCoin, helped the fraudulent entity launder millions of dollars of ill-gotten proceeds through shell companies.
