The previous CEO of Turkish crypto exchange Thodex, Faruk Fatih Özer, was sentenced to 11,196 years in jail by a Turkish courtroom on prices of “establishing, managing and being a member of a company,” “certified fraud,” and “laundering of property values.”
The Anatolian ninth Excessive Prison Courtroom sentenced Özer alongside together with his two siblings to the identical jail sentence of 11,196 years, 10 months and 15 days in jail together with a $5-million effective, reported Turkish state-run information company Anadolu Company.
The Turkish crypto exchange was one of many largest digital asset buying and selling platforms within the nation earlier than it abruptly imploded in 2021. The exchange halted providers on the platform with out prior discover, and the founder, Özer, fled the country together with customers’ property totaling $2 billion in crypto. On the time, Özer had refuted all claims of a potential exit rip-off.
The fugitive founder was lastly detained in Albania in August 2022, the place he was serving a jail sentence, earlier than he was extradited to Turkey in April 2023 on prices of fraud and cash laundering. Özer was already in jail for failure to submit tax documents since July, whereas the newest conviction comes for defrauding clients.
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The founding father of the crypto exchange claimed in courtroom that he and his household are going through injustice. He mentioned Thodex was only a crypto firm that went bankrupt and had no prison intentions. A Google-translated model of Özer’s courtroom assertion learn:
“I’m good sufficient to handle all establishments on this planet. That is evident from the corporate I based on the age of twenty-two. If I had been to determine a prison group, I might not act so amateurishly. What’s in query is it’s clear that the suspects within the file have been victims for greater than 2 years.”
The long-drawn-out case towards the Thodex crypto exchange had 21 defendants, 5 of whom attended the courtroom listening to in particular person. The courtroom acquitted 16 defendants of “certified fraud” attributable to lack of proof and ordered the discharge of 4 defendants. The opposite defendants within the case obtained various levels of sentences based mostly on their involvement within the fraud.
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