To the lake Farooq Fatih (Faruk Fatih Ozer)

To the lake Farooq Fatih (Faruk Fatih Ozer)

Biography

2023: Sentence - 11,196 years in prison

On September 7, 2023, a Turkish court in Istanbul sentenced former head cryptocurrency exchange Thodex Faruk Fatih Ozer. For fraud and other crimes, a man is sentenced to imprisonment for a term of 11 196 years.

The Turkish crypto exchange Todex started working in 2017, and in 2021 it unexpectedly stopped serving customers. At the time of the curtailment of activities, the site consisted of approximately 391 thousand users. After numerous complaints, Thodex said the problems stemmed from the exchange being hit by a cyber attack. Management promised to resume operations within 4-5 days, but this did not happen. Meanwhile, Ozer himself fled to Albania.

The Turkish Ministry of Internal Affairs announced the arrest of Lake on August 30, 2022: the Albanian authorities detained a man in the city of Vlora. His identity was confirmed based on biometric information. The fraudster was extradited to Turkey in early 2023, after which he appeared in court. Ozer and two of his relatives are found guilty of aggravated fraud, leading a criminal organization and money laundering. The court found that the attackers converted their clients' money into cryptocurrency assets and gold, and also attracted new victims through falsified advertising messages.

The total amount of losses suffered by investors in the Thodex collapse remains unclear. In the prosecutor's indictment, they are estimated at 356 million Turkish lira (approximately $13.26 million at the exchange rate as of September 8, 2023), but Turkish media report figures reaching $2 billion. According to a study by Chainalysis, the value of the lost cryptocurrency on the Todex exchange is $2.6 billion.^[1]

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