💣🔥💣 EXPLOSIVE 💣🔥💣

Sentence of 11,196 years in prison for Faruk Özer, general director of the Turkish #criptobolsa #Thodex that collapsed

Thodex was one of the largest #exchange in Turkey before it suddenly went offline in April 2021 and Özer disappeared.

Faruk Fatih Özer, the founder of the collapsed Turkish crypto exchange Thodex, his sister Serap Özer and his brother Güven Özer have been sentenced to 11,196 years, 10 months and 15 days in prison, according to local media. He was also fined 135 million lire (approximately $5 million).

Thodex was one of the largest crypto exchanges in Turkey before it suddenly went offline in April 2021 and Özer disappeared. More than 400,000 members were left in the dark without access to $2 billion in cryptocurrency deposits.

Özer had fled to Albania but was arrested in August 2022 following an Interpol red notice against him.

In April 2023, Özer was extradited to Turkey and detained by police upon arrival on seven charges, including establishing and managing an organization for the purpose of committing a crime, being a member of an organization, and fraud using systems of information as a tool of banks or credit institutions, fraud against merchants or company directors and cooperative administrators, and laundering the value of assets resulting from crime.

When the case came to light, Özer's brother, sister and four other senior employees were jailed and at least 83 people were detained as part of the investigation. At the final trial, 21 defendants faced up to 40,564 years in prison.