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A Turkish court has sentenced Faruk Fatih Ozer, who ran crypto exchange, Thodex that imploded in 2021, to 11,196 years in prison for crimes including fraud.
The court in Istanbul which delivered its verdict against Ozer late Thursday, sentenced the failed crypto exchange boss and his two siblings to similar jail terms.
The court said it found the convicts guilty of aggravated fraud, leading a criminal organization and money laundering, Bloomberg reports.
Also, Euronews reports that taking $2 billion from his customers was what led to sentencing the boss of the failed crypto exchange – which was one of Turkey's largest crypto exchanges – to 11,196 years, 10 months and 15 days in prison.
Thodex was one of Turkey's largest crypto exchanges before it suddenly went offline in April 2021 and Özer went missing. More than 400,000 members were left without access to their money: a total of $2 billion in cryptocurrencies.
It was reported that Özer was suspected of having fled Turkey and after Interpol issued a red notice for him, he was arrested in Albania last year.
The notice alleged Özer acted with fraudulent intent from the beginning and that Thodex was a criminal organisation.
The collapse of Thodex sent shockwaves across Turkey, where crypto was widely used to protect savings from sky-high inflation and the steep devaluation of the lira.