Crypto Founder, Brothers, Sentenced To 11,196 Years Imprisonment | READ MORE
Faith Ukanwa
Sep 08, 2023
Crypto Founder, Brothers, Sentenced To 11,196 Years Imprisonment | READ MORE
A 'disgraced' Turkish crypto founder who fled to Albania and his two brothers have been sentenced to 11,196 years in jail each, the Anadolu state news agency reported Friday.
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Prosecutors had asked for Thodex boss, Faruk Fatih Ozer, aged 29, to be sentenced to 40,562 years in prison for money laundering, fraud and establishing a criminal organisation.
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"If I were to establish a criminal organisation, I would not have acted so amateurishly," Anadolu quoted Ozer as telling the court.
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His two brothers, Serap and Guven, received the same sentence, which was issued late Thursday after a brief trial, Turkish media reports said.
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Turkey is known for issuing massive prison sentences, which became more common after it abolished the death penalty in 2004 to help its efforts to join the European Union.
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Ozer was initially reported to have fled Turkey in April 2021 with $2 billion in investor assets, although that figure has since been disputed.
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Prosecutors said Ozer had transferred 250 million liras in user assets (worth about $30 million at the time) to three secret accounts when he fled Turkey in April 2021, with much of the money ending up in a Malta bank.
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The indictment said the Ozer brothers had caused 356 million liras of damage to clients in all.
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The case grabbed local headlines because it coincided with a Turkish crypto boom that has since largely subsided due to heavier government regulation.
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Turks began turning to various cryptocurrencies as a defence against a deep slide in the value of the lira that began more than two years ago.
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Ozer gained further celebrity status after being pictured meeting with ultranationalist pro-government figures.
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He was arrested last year in Albania on an international arrest warrant from Interpol.
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AFP
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— Faith Ukanwa