Crypto Exchange Founder Fled With $2 Billion Detained, Faces 40,000 Years in Jail

• The founder of Thodex, a large Turkish Bitcoin exchange firm, has been detained after fleeing Turkey with over $2 billion last year.

• He now faces 40,564 years in prison.

Faruk Fatih Ozer was recently captured in Albania when International Police issued a warrant of arrest. According to Decrypt, the former Thodex CEO was captured by local authorities in Vlor, Albania’s third most populous city. Biometric data were used to establish Ozer’s identification.

While several Thodex personnel were apprehended in April 2021, their quest for Ozer lasted more than a year. As a result, he and the other founders and officials of the doomed crypto exchange face 40,564 years in prison.

Various cryptocurrency-related frauds cost $7.7 billion last year. Some of the fraudsters took hundreds of dollars, while others grabbed millions. Still, the founder of Turkish crypto currency Thodex, Faruk Fatih Ozer, is said to be the most famous crypto scammer of all time. They allegedly departed the country in April 2021 with around $2 billion belonging to approximately 400,000 Thodex clients.

Thodex has been in business until 2017 and had approximately 700,000 customers in Turkey, where cryptocurrency have been frequently utilized to protect assets since the country’s currency lira has been experiencing a secular fall for years. However, because practically everyone in Turkey has started a cryptocurrency exchange, the government adopted far harsher laws by early 2021 to crack down on this business.

Editor’s Note: This article by The Mega Maxi is not a financial advise.