The founder of the Turkish crypto exchange Thodex received a prison sentence of 11,196 years
Date: 2024-06-20 Author: Gabriel Deangelo Categories: IN WORLD
Conviction and sentence
This week, the founder of the now-closed crypto exchange Thodex, Faruk Fatih Ozer, was sentenced to 11,196 years in prison. This court decision became one of the longest punishments in the history of Turkish justice. Along with Ozer, his brother and sister, who helped him in carrying out fraudulent transactions, received the same sentence.
Before his arrest, Ozer tried to escape justice. During his last days of freedom, he grew a chest-length beard and took a taxi to southern Albania, where he intended to pitch a tent on the seashore. However, his plans were not destined to come true - law enforcement agencies found him at a public event.
Lost hardware wallet
According to him, during his escape from Turkey, Ozer carried a hardware wallet with $2 billion through airport security. However, he said that he had already emptied it to pay compensation to injured investors, and threw the device itself into the Ionian Sea.
It took 62 arrests and coordinated efforts by law enforcement agencies from several countries to catch Ozer. Throughout the trial, Ozer denied any wrongdoing and claimed that funds from his exchange were stolen by a third-party hacker.
The trial took place in the Istanbul Supreme Court, which sentenced Ozer and his relatives to a combined prison term of 43,000 years. When handing down the sentence, the judge did not comment on Ozer's statement about the hardware wallet being thrown into the sea.
Formally, Faruk Ozer will serve a prison sentence of up to 13,221 years. Despite the harsh sentence, Ozer continues to deny fraud charges, saying his exchange was the victim of a hacker attack.
The case of Faruk Fatih Ozer has become a striking example of the tough response of Turkish justice to fraud in the cryptocurrency sector. His attempt to escape and protestations of innocence did not save him from the longest sentence ever handed down by a Turkish court.
