Turkish Crypto-currency founder, Faruk Fatih Ozer, 29 and his two brothers who fled their country to Albania after defrauding unsuspecting populace has been arrested by the Turkish authority and sentenced to 11,196yrs jail term. The court prosecutor has earlier ordered that the Thodex founder, Ozer be sentenced to 40,562yrs in prison for charges bordering on money laundering, fraud and the establishment of a criminal organisation.
Reporting today, the Anadolu news agency quoted Ozer when he was asked about creating a criminal organisation said, “If I were to establish a criminal organisation, I would not have acted so amateurishly.”
In a like manner, his two brothers, Serap and Guven were also charged for criminal conspiracy and are to serve the same prison term with their brother Ozer when the sentence was pronounced yesterday by the court.
Turkey is known for issuing enormous prison sentences, which became more common after it abolished the death penalty in 2004 in its bid to join the European Union that never see the light of the day.
Ozer was initially reported to have fled Turkey in April 2021 with $2 billion in investor assets, although that figure has since been disputed by some section of the media and public.
According to the Prosecutors Ozer had transferred 250 million liras in user assets (worth about $30 million at the time) to three different secret accounts as at a time when he fled Turkey in April 2021, with much of the proceed ending up in a Malta bank.
The charges also revealed that Ozer brothers had caused 356 million liras of damage to clients in all.
The case grabbed local headlines because it coincided with a Turkish crypto boom that has since largely subsided due to heavier government regulation.
The country began turning to various cryptocurrencies to protect against a deep slide in the value of its lira that began more than two years ago.
Ozer gained further celebrity status after being pictured meeting with ultranationalist pro-government figures.
He was arrested last year in Albania on an international arrest warrant from Interpol.
