A Turkish crypto entrepreneur, Faruk Fatih Ozer, who had fled to Albania, along with his two brothers, has received a prison sentence of 11,196 years, according to reports from the Anadolu state news agency on Friday.
Ozer, the leader of Thodex, faced charges of money laundering, fraud, and establishing a criminal organization.
Prosecutors initially sought a sentence of 40,562 years in prison for Ozer.
During the court proceedings, Ozer reportedly defended himself, saying, “If I were to establish a criminal organization, I would not have acted so amateurishly,” as quoted by Anadolu.
His two brothers, Serap and Guven, received the same sentence, which was issued late Thursday after a brief trial, Turkish media reports said.
Turkey is known for issuing massive prison sentences, which became more common after it abolished the death penalty in 2004 to help its efforts to join the European Union.
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Ozer was initially reported to have fled Turkey in April 2021 with $2 billion in investor assets, although that figure has since been disputed.
Prosecutors said Ozer had transferred 250 million liras in user assets (worth about $30 million at the time) to three secret accounts when he fled Turkey in April 2021, with much of the money ending up in a Malta bank.
The indictment said the Ozer brothers had caused 356 million liras of damage to clients in all.
The case grabbed local headlines because it coincided with a Turkish crypto boom that has since largely subsided due to heavier government regulation.
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Turks began turning to various cryptocurrencies as a defence against a deep slide in the value of the lira that began more than two years ago.
Ozer gained further celebrity status after being pictured meeting with ultranationalist pro-government figures.
He was arrested last year in Albania on an international arrest warrant from Interpol.
AFP