Faruk Fatih Özer, the founder of the defunct Turkish cryptocurrency exchange Thodex, along with his sister Serap Özer and his brother Güven Özer, have been sentenced to 11,196 years, 10 months, and 15 days in prison. Additionally, they have been slapped with a judicial fine of approximately $5 million.
Thodex, once among Turkey’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, abruptly went offline in April 2021, leaving over 400,000 members in the lurch with no access to deposits totaling $2 billion in cryptocurrencies. After his disappearance, Özer had fled to Albania but was arrested in August 2022 following an Interpol red notice issued against him.
By April 2023, Özer had been extradited to Turkey and detained by the police on seven charges. These charges included establishing and managing an organization with the intent to commit a crime, membership in a criminal organization, fraud through the use of information systems associated with banks or credit institutions, fraud involving merchants or company executives, cooperative managers, and money laundering of assets derived from illicit activities.
Upon the revelation of the case, Özer’s brother, sister, and four other high-ranking employees were incarcerated, and at least 83 individuals were taken into custody as part of the investigation. During the subsequent trial, 21 defendants were facing potential sentences totaling up to 40,564 years in prison.
The Anatolian 9th Heavy Penal Court delivered its verdict on Thursday, acquitting 16 of the 21 defendants and releasing four of the seven individuals who had been detained due to insufficient evidence. The remaining defendants received varying prison sentences for their involvement in various criminal activities.
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