The Istanbul Regional Courtroom of Justice has overturned a part of the conviction towards Faruk Fatih Özer, the founding father of the now-defunct cryptocurrency change Thodex.
The court docket dismissed costs associated to beginning a company to commit a criminal offense however upheld his fraud and cash laundering convictions, in accordance with native reporting.
Özer, who was sentenced to over 11,190 years in jail for allegedly defrauding greater than 400,000 traders out of $2 billion, stays incarcerated.
Nonetheless, the appeals ruling means he’ll not serve time for organized crime-related costs. The court docket additionally ordered a retrial on sure facets of the case, sending it again to a decrease court docket.
Regardless of the ruling, the court docket decided that Özer ought to stay in custody for different crimes.
Thodex collapse
Thodex collapsed in April 2021 after abruptly halting withdrawals, leaving customers unable to entry their funds.
Authorities later decided that Özer had fled to Albania, the place he was arrested in 2022 and extradited to Turkey in 2023. His authorized group is now pushing for additional leniency, arguing that his sentencing was disproportionate.
Özer has been accused of defrauding hundreds of traders and laundering thousands and thousands by way of Thodex. After the change out of the blue ceased operations, he fled to Albania, claiming he was securing funding from overseas traders.
Initially, he promised to cooperate with Turkish authorities and return buyer funds. Nonetheless, he later claimed he was the sufferer of a cyberattack that depleted the change’s belongings. His disappearance triggered a felony investigation, a global manhunt, and protests from traders fearing they’d misplaced their financial savings.
Thodex was certainly one of Turkey’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, boasting over 400,000 customers and a each day buying and selling quantity of roughly $585 million.