- Özer was sentenced to seven months and fifteen days imprisonment for not providing the papers required in court.
- Faruk Fatir Özer claimed that he was innocent of the charges.
- He still awaits a trial for defrauding investors.
CEO of Thodex, Faruk Fatir Özer, Faces Jail Time
Faruk Fatir Özer, the former CEO of Thodex, a now-defunct crypto firm, has been sentenced to seven and a half months by a court in Turkiye. The court found him guilty of lack of cooperation with the Tax Inspection Board.
Although the prosecutor in Özer’s case requested a five-year jail term, a court in Albania sentenced him to one year and six months. After properly considering his conduct at the trial, the court reduced his jail time to 7 months and 15 days.
On pleading his innocence, Faruk Özer claimed that a trustee had been appointed to manage matters like tax filing on his behalf.
The Rise and Fall of Thodex
Before crypto firms collapsed in a sequence last year, 2021 contributed its share to the destruction.
Thodex, a Turkish-based crypto exchange, rose to popularity, offering affordable transaction fees and a secure platform. It attracted quite several users and had the potential to expand beyond Turkey.
However, the acclaimed crypto exchange dropped the bomb on its users in April 2021 and ceased operations after five years of establishment.
According to Coinmarketcap, the company’s executives began to wipe off their social media handles. The CEO of the crypto exchange, Faruk Fatir Özer, deleted his Twitter Profile and fled to Albania.
Thodex’s website was inaccessible, and promises were made to ensure customers could withdraw their funds. Unfortunately, that never happened. Following the suspension of withdrawals announced on Thodex’s official page, there has been no communication from the crypto exchange to its customers.
Local media outlets reported that the former CEO of the crypto exchange, Özer, fled after making away with $2 billion worth of customers’ funds, which led to the cease of operations.
A week after the collapse of Thodex, the Turkish Central Bank banned crypto payments.
Faruk Farir Özer, CEO of Thodex, denies fraud allegations.
A few days before the collapsed Turkish crypto exchange announced the suspension of withdrawals, Özer, the company’s former CEO, fled from Turkey to Albania. An Interpol red notice was issued for him, and he was arrested in August in Albania. The Turkish government started his extradition process to Turkey, where he faces fraud charges.
Özer went into hiding after leaving over 400,000 customers in the dark, with about $2 billion worth of cryptocurrencies unaccounted for.
He arrived in Turkey after his extradition and faced his first trial recently, where he denied the allegations of fraud.
Faruk Fatir Özer is among 21 defendants facing allegations of fraud in the Thodex case. The CEO of Thodex is also charged with planning the fraudulent scheme that affected 400,000 crypto users.
Although the trial is ongoing, observers of the case speculated that the CEO of one of Turkey’s largest crypto exchanges may face up to 40,000 years of imprisonment if found guilty.
