A Turkish cryptocurrency exchange founder and his two siblings were sentenced to 11,196 years each for fraud, the BBC reported Friday.
Faruk Fatih Ozer, 29; his sister Serap and his brother Guven were found guilty of money laundering, fraud and organized crime, according to the BBC.
Ozer founded the cryptocurrency exchange Thodex in 2017, and it grew into one of Turkey’s biggest exchange platforms against the backdrop of the slide of the country’s currency, the lira. Ozer became famous nationwide and was seen with prominent pro-government figures, the outlet reported. (RELATED: Lawsuit Alleges Shaquille O’Neal Violated Securities Law By Promoting Crypto Project)
Faruk Fatih Ozer, who ran crypto exchange Thodex until it imploded in 2021, is sentenced to 11,196 years in prison by a Turkish court for crimes including fraud https://t.co/V8PX23HZoW
— Bloomberg (@business) September 8, 2023
Thodex collapsed without warning in April 2021, the BBC reported. Ozer fled with investor assets to Albania, where he was arrested in 2022 on an international warrant issued by Interpol and eventually extradited to Turkey to face trial. The platform’s collapse affected 2,027 victims, according to the outlet. Initially thought to be worth $2 billion, the investor assets lost were later estimated to be worth about $43 million. However, the struggles of the lira and Turkey’s rampant inflation have seen the losses shrunken to the equivalent of $13 million, according to the BBC.
Ozer reportedly told the court he “not have acted so amateurishly” if his intentions had been criminal, saying he was “smart enough to lead any institution on Earth” as was “evident in this company I established at the age of 22,” the BBC reported.
Prosecutors initially appealed for Ozer to be sentenced to 40,562 years in prison. Since the death penalty was abolished in Turkey in 2004, lengthy sentences such as Ozer’s became common, according to the BBC.