Turkey’s biggest cryptocurrency criminal detained in Albania after 2 years of search

Albanian law enforcement agencies have detained the founder of the fake Turkish cryptocurrency exchange Thodex, Faruk Fatih Ozer.

As it has become known, the Thodex CEO was detained this morning in Tirana, the capital of Albania, and is currently in custody. However, after a court hearing, Faruk Fatih Özer will be deported to Turkey, where the fraudster and his accomplices face up to 40,000 years in prison.

Faruk Fatih Özer fled Turkey in March, taking $ 2 billion in client funds with him. Before the freezing of the company’s accounts, more than 400,000 clients used the exchange’s services, and daily sales exceeded half a billion dollars.

In April, it became known that a Turkish prosecutor demanded that the court imprison 21 members of the Thodex team for a total of 40,000 years. Even then, law enforcement officials knew that Ozer was in Albania, but the search for the hacker took a long time. According to 2015 data, the top 10 richest people in Albania invested more than $ 1 billion in Thodex.

The story of Faruk Fatih Ozer gives hope that every cryptocurrency fraudster will be found sooner or later. Apparently, crypto queen Ruzha Ignatova, who is hiding in Greece, is also waiting in the dock. Ignatova founded the OneCoin pyramid scheme, which she and her offshore company OneCoin Ltd promoted under the guise of cryptocurrency. According to rough estimates, the fraudster received $ 4 billion.