Two brothers and a ‘disgraced’ Turkish crypto pioneer who fled to Albania have been given sentences of 11,196 years in prison apiece.
Thhe CEO of Thodex, Faruk Fatih Ozer, had been charged with money laundering, fraud, and founding a criminal organisation. The prosecution had requested that he receive a sentence of 40,562 years in jail.
“If I were to establish a criminal organisation, I would not have acted so amateurishly,” Anadolu quoted Ozer as telling the court.
Following a quick trial, his two brothers, Serap and Guven, each received the same penalty, according to Turkish media reports.
Since Turkey abolished the death penalty in 2004 to support its attempts to enter the European Union, it has become increasingly customary to impose lengthy prison terms, which are well-known in the country.
Although that amount has subsequently been challenged, Ozer was initially said to have left Turkey in April 2021 with $2 billion in investor assets.
When Ozer left Turkey in April 2021, according to prosecutors, he transferred user assets totaling 250 million liras (approximately $30 million at the time) to three secret accounts. A large portion of the money eventually ended up in a Malta bank.
