CEO Of Turkish Exchange Thodex Apprehended In Albania, Faces Extradition To Turkey
- The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the now-defunct Turkish crypto exchange Thodex, Faruk Fatih Özer, has been recently detained by law enforcement authorities in Albania.
- Notably, the Istanbul Anatolian Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office opened an investigation after receiving complaints from several people.
As per a statement from Turkey’s Interior Ministry, the Chief Executive Officer of the now-defunct Turkish crypto exchange, Thodex, Faruk Fatih Özer, has been recently detained by law enforcement authorities in Albania and will likely be transferred to Turkey.
Thodex, which used to be one of the country’s leading crypto exchanges a few years back, abruptly stopped its users from trading in April 2021. This resulted in a massive panic situation, causing over 391,000 users to lose all of their hard-earned money.
Estimates of the total losses caused by the shutdown of Thodex range widely. According to Chainalysis, approximately $2.52 billion was lost, accounting for 90% of the entire value lost worldwide to rug pulls last year. On the other hand, a charge from April 2022 alleges damages of more than $24 million. A Turkish prosecutor has demanded jail terms totaling 40,564 years for Özer and his coworkers as part of that accusation.
The incident is counted under the biggest rug pull of all time as Özer reportedly fled the country with over 2 billion worth of cryptocurrencies to Albania, according to local reports at the time.
Notably, the Istanbul Anatolian Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office opened an investigation after receiving complaints from several people.
According to a report by Bloomberg, Ozer said in a statement that he had considered “giving himself up” or “committing suicide” before ultimately fleeing the country in order to “stay alive and fight, work, and repay” his debts.” This statement was issued shortly after the collapse of Thodex.
“The day I repay all my debt, I will return to my country and give myself to justice,”
he continued.
The Thodex CEO denied accusations of a rug-pull and displayed an intent to repay funds to investors from his now-deleted Twitter account. At the time, Özer claimed that the real reason for suspending trading and prohibiting withdrawals was to look into 30,000 customer accounts that had suspicious anomalies that were found “during a three-month investment talk.”
A crypto journalist with over 3 years of experience in DeFi, NFT, metaverse, etc. Parth has worked with major media outlets in the crypto and finance world and has gained experience and expertise in crypto culture after surviving bear and bull markets over the years.
