The head of a collapsed virtual currency exchange is sentenced to 10,000 years in prison, prosecutors seek 40,000 years
Faruk Fatih Özer, the founder of Todex, Turkey's leading cryptocurrency exchange, was sentenced to 11,196 years, 10 months and 15 days in prison for fleeing with customer funds. .
Thodex'in kurucusu Faruk Fatih Özer'in dolandırıcılık davasında karar
Turkish ex-crypto boss sentenced to 11,196 years in jail | Daily Sabah
https://www.dailysabah.com/business/tech/turkish-ex-crypto-boss-sentenced-to-11196-years-in-jail
Cryptocurrency boss is jailed for 11,196 years in Turkey after defrauding investors of millions of dollars - after prosecutors called for a 40,562-year sentence | Daily Mail Online
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12496729/Cryptocurrency-boss-jailed-11-196-years-Turkey-defrauding-investors-millions-dollars-prosecutors-called-40-562-year- sentence.html
Turkish Crypto Boss Sentenced To 11,196 Years in Jail – Channels Television
https://www.channelstv.com/2023/09/08/turkish-crypto-boss-sentenced-to-11196-years-in-jail/
On September 7, 2023, Turkish state media Anadolu News Agency announced that Faruk Fatih Özer, who was 29 years old at the time of writing, and his brothers Güven and Serap were sentenced to 11,196 years in prison and 100 million yen, respectively. It was reported that a fine of 35 million lire (approximately 736 million yen) was sentenced.
Thodex is a cryptocurrency exchange that was founded in Turkey in 2017 as Koineks and changed its name to its current one in March 2020. At the time, cryptocurrencies were attracting attention as a way to protect assets in Turkey, which was suffering from the depreciation of the Turkish lira and severe inflation, and Todex followed this trend and became one of Turkey's major crypto exchanges. However, in April 2021, the site suddenly became disconnected, and Özer and other people involved disappeared.
Reportedly, an estimated 400,000 users lost access to their funds due to the closure of Thodex, and the total damage was estimated at $2 billion (approximately 292,848 million yen). .
A subsequent investigation revealed that Özer had transferred funds worth 253 million lire (approximately 1,379 million yen) deposited from customers to three secret accounts and fled to Albania. He was arrested in August 2022 by Albanian authorities who received an international arrest warrant, commonly known as a 'red wanted warrant', from the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol).
Prosecutors had asked for 40,462 years in prison for Özer, who was extradited to Turkey in April 2023, on charges of 'fraud,' 'establishing a criminal organization,' and 'laundering criminal funds.' Twenty people, including Özer's family members and Todex associates, who were charged or arrested in connection with the incident, were also charged with various charges.
In response, Özer said, ``I am smart enough to manage any organization in the world. This is clear from the company I founded at the age of 22. If I were to start a criminal organization, I would 'I wouldn't act like an amateur,' he said, insisting that he and his family were innocent.
At a hearing held on September 7th at Anadolu Court No. 9, 17 out of 21 people were acquitted, and 4 out of 7 people who had been arrested due to insufficient evidence were released. As mentioned above, he was sentenced to 11,196 years in prison, and the other defendants who were not acquitted were also convicted.
A sentence of 10,000 years may seem excessive, but Turkey, which is aiming to join the EU, abolished the death penalty in 2004, and since then has imposed extremely long sentences for serious crimes. It is becoming more common for people to be sentenced to prison terms.
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