Turkish, On Thursday the court made a decision about Faruk Fatih Ozer, the person who started the cryptocurrency exchange called Thodex, but he didn’t finish high school. Ozer was found guilty of several serious crimes, like leading a criminal group, doing very bad fraud, and washing money.
A report says that Ozer got a huge sentence of 11,196 years in jail.
In 2017, Ozer started his own company, and it became one of Turkey’s biggest cryptocurrency exchanges. But in April 2021, his company said it couldn’t keep going, and Ozer ran away to Albania. He promised to give back the money to people who invested and said he would come back to Turkey once he did that.
This year, he was sent back to Turkey after a long fight in court.
Legal Developments and Sentences in Cryptocurrency World
Last Thursday, his two brothers or sisters got similar punishments after being found guilty of the same three crimes, as per report said.
During the trial, Ozer was quoted by the government-controlled Anadolu Agency as saying, “I have the smarts needed to run any organization on Earth.” He also said, “You can see this in the company I started when I was 22. I wouldn’t have acted so unprofessionally if it was really a criminal group.”
The prosecutors guess that Thodex’s failure caused about $13 million in losses for people who invested in it, but no one knows the exact number. Some Turkish news even say it could be as high as $2 billion.
This punishment comes at the same time as another famous person in the cryptocurrency world, Sam Bankman-Fried, gets ready for his trial. He’s the one who made FTX and Alameda Research, and his cryptocurrency exchange crashed really badly in November 2022. That caused a bunch of companies to go bankrupt, and many people in the industry compare it to the time when “Lehman Brothers” failed.
Right now, we hear that Bankman-Fried plans to pay seven expert witnesses a lot of money, possibly up to $1,200 for every hour they talk in his defense. His lawyer also says that he can’t get the medicine Adderall in prison and can only eat bread, drink water, and have peanut butter.
Conclusion
Faruk Fatih Ozer, founder of Thodex cryptocurrency exchange, received an enormous 11,196-year prison term in Turkey. His siblings also faced similar sentences. Ozer claimed intelligence and unprofessionalism in the trial. Thodex’s collapse caused about $13 million in losses, with reports of up to $2 billion.
Sam Bankman-Fried, FTX and Alameda Research creator, faces an impending trial and plans to pay expert witnesses generously. He’s experiencing difficulties accessing medication in prison and has a limited diet.
