Faruk Fatih Ozer, CEO and founder of now-defunct Turkish exchange, Thodex, has reportedly been arrested in Albania. In April 2021, it was reported that Ozer had fled to Albania with $2 billion of investors’ money. However, a little over a year later, reports are coming in that Turkey’s biggest crypto scammer has finally been apprehended. According to reports, Ozer was arrested while on holiday in Southern Albania.
In April of this year, a Turkish prosecutor sought a sentence of 40,564 years in prison for the Thodex founders and executives.
Ozer’s crypto exchange, Thodex, had “temporarily closed” in April of 2021 to address an “abnormal fluctuation in the company accounts,” as per a statement on its website.
According to the lawyer who brought a criminal complaint against Ozer, out of the 400,000 users on Thodex, 390,000 were active. However, Ozer refuted the claims, saying that just 30,000 customers have been impacted. Moreover, he said that the estimated $2 billion in losses were “unfounded.”
Popular crypto blogger “db” took to Twitter, to share the news of the arrest. His Tweet garnered responses from other popular crypto proponents such as “FatManTerra”, a researcher of the Terra network.
Crypto scammers are increasingly on authorities’ radar
As crypto has entered the mainstream, so has increased the number of scams and frauds. Nonetheless, authorities are taking crypto scammers more and more seriously.
The Greek authorities recently launched an investigation into finding Ruja Ignatova, popularly called “Cryptoqueen.” Ignatova was recently added to the FBI’s top ten most wanted list. Ignatova is behind the Onecoin crypto pyramid scheme. She made away with $4 billion in investors’ money in 2017. Ignatova was last seen boarding a flight to Athens from the Bulgarian capital of Sofia.
As per a recent report by Chainalysis, crypto scams dropped in 2022. This is most likely due to the market crash and the drop in crypto prices. Scams usually target new users and investors, which are missing from the bearish market of 2022. However, the report also highlighted an increase in the number of hacks, which the firm does not expect to drop anytime soon.