21 defendants associated with the Thodex exchange are charged with up to 40,564 years in prison. The indictment was filed on Thursday by a Turkish prosecutor.
Thodex is a crypto firm based out of Turkey. It announced last April that the platform had been “temporarily closed” amidst an “abnormal fluctuation in the company accounts.”
The Turkish prosecutor seeks thousands of years of jail punishment for the founders and executives of the Thodex cryptocurrency exchange. Reports say that the Thodex founder, Faruk Fatih Ozer flew to Albania with $2 billion of its investors’ funds.
Ever since, the Turkish authorities issued an international warrant to catch Ozer.
More than 100x lifetime sentence for the Thodex associates
An initial complaint filed at that time stated that Thodex had 400,000 users, of which 390,000 were active. Users were complaining at that time as they could not withdraw their funds.
An international warrant is still active for Ozer’s arrest. Police have already captured 62 people covering eight cities in Istanbul.
According to the Bloomberg report, the indictment filed is seeking the 21 associates up to 40,564 years in prison.
“The defendants are accused of establishing a criminal organization, fraud through informatics systems, and laundering proceeds from criminal activity.”
$2.6 billion in losses?
The indictment states a total loss that amounts to $24 million (356 million liras) as the exchange collapsed. This is way below the estimated $2.6 billion reported by Chainalysis in February.
As of now, the whereabouts of the 28-year-old CEO Faruk Fatih Ozer are uncertain. He was last located at Istanbul airport as per the footage that emerged. The Turkish teams have hunted him in four countries, including Albania but failed.
Thodex came out of the shadows during the crypto boom in the Turkish region to protect user savings from soaring inflation. What emerged as a savior eventually ended up as a curse.