Turkish crypto boss sentenced to 11,196 years in jail after stealing $2 billion

CEO of former Turkish crypto exchange Thodex, Faruk Fatih Özer, has been sentenced to 11,196 years in jail after stealing $2 billion from customers.

Over the last year or so, popular crypto exchanges have begun falling apart. FTX’s co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried has been in and out of court rooms for fraud and Celsius has gone bankrupt as well.

Turkish exchange Thodex suddenly went offline in April 2021, and CEO Faruk Fatih Özer went missing — leaving more than 400k members without access to their combined $2,000,000,000 in funds. He was found and arrested in Albania in 2022.

On September 7, 2023, Özer was sentenced to over 11,000 years in jail for fraud.

Turkish crypto boss sentenced to 11.2K years in jail

According to EuroNews, the Turkish crypto boss was sentenced to 11,196 years, 10 months, and 15 years in prison, a number so ludicrously high that many have been taken aback by the sheer length of his more-than-life sentence.

He was sentenced on various charges, including fraud, leading a criminal organization, and money laundering — all stemming from the now collapsed crypto exchange, Thodex.

Özer’s two siblings were also sentenced in connection to what happened with the exchange.

Thodex

Many were left shocked by the fact Özer recieved a sentence of over 11,000 years, and took to Twitter to share their thoughts.

“Why not just say life in prison. 12 thousand years haha,” one user replied.

Another said: “Nahh 11k years is CRAZY lmao.”

“11k years. Yikes. But justified,” a third viewer commented.

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