Faruk Fatih Ozer, the founder and former CEO of defunct cryptocurrency trade Thodex, has died in a Turkish jail whereas serving an 11,196-year sentence for fraud and different monetary crimes, in keeping with native media experiences.
Authorities mentioned Ozer was discovered hanging within the toilet of his single-person cell on the Tekirdağ F-Kind Excessive Safety Closed Jail. Justice Minister Yılmaz Tunç confirmed that an investigation into his demise is underway, although preliminary findings level to suicide.
Ozer was convicted in 2023 alongside his brother and sister for crimes together with aggravated fraud, cash laundering, and main a felony group.
The trio’s sentencing adopted the 2021 collapse of Thodex, which abruptly halted withdrawals and disappeared with buyer funds – an occasion that left greater than 400,000 customers with an estimated $2.6 billion in losses, in accordance to Chainalysis.
After Thodex’s shutdown, Ozer fled Turkey for Albania, later telling the general public he supposed to “keep alive and repay [his] money owed.” He was arrested in Albania in 2022 and extradited to Turkey the next yr, the place he was discovered responsible by an Istanbul court docket.
His demise marks a grim conclusion to one of the vital infamous crypto scandals in Turkey’s historical past – a case that uncovered the vulnerabilities of the nation’s unregulated digital asset market and left 1000’s of traders with out recourse.
