The whole community hopes that we won’t see more scandalous stories and aggressive hit pieces from traditional media about the world of crypto. The last thing we all need when the whole industry is preparing for several massive events like the Ethereum merge and Cardano hard fork is to hear about how crypto is full of scammers and fraudulent people.
The arrest of Faruk Fatih Ozer, the infamous CEO of the failed Turkish crypto exchange called Thodex, has been making noise in many countries. He was arrested in Albania where he tried to hide from authorities. The man is facing over 40 thousand years in prison, a number that he heard last in the story from Arabian Nights. However, he is certainly not the jinn and won’t survive such long imprisonment.
Thodex turned out to be a rug pull project and worked like a Ponzi scheme. Ozer managed to get away with “losing” $24 million. Many other bad actors also managed to steal substantial amounts of money from Turkish citizens who desperately try to save their wealth from inflation by purchasing crypto assets that seem way more stable than Lira. On the other hand, such environments are perfect for scammers.
Ozer claimed that he will return to Turkey and repay what people lost. However, he preferred to stay in the city of Vlora where he was spending quality time and living a lavish life. Maybe, he was preparing to start repaying what he stole and it was his way to get ready.
While only $24 million is stated to be lost due to fraudulent activities, the prosecution and people who invested in Thodex say that the total amount of lost money is closer to $2 billion. The fall of Thodex was the largest cryptocurrency scam of 2021 and the investigation was unfolding up until recently.
It is a story that gave more fuel to those who already talk down crypto and want to persuade people to avoid investing in various crypto assets. It is a bad moment for a story like this to go viral!