ISTANBUL, Turkey — The founder of
cryptocurrency exchange
Thodex, suspected of having fled Turkey with the assets
of his clients, has been arrested in Albania, the Turkish interior ministry
said on Tuesday.
اضافة اعلان
Turkey issued an international arrest warrant in
April last year for fugitive businessman Faruk Fatih Ozer, who fled with a
reported $2 billion in investors’ assets.
Tirana had informed Turkish Interior Minister
Suleyman Soylu that Ozer, who was wanted by Interpol, “was arrested in Vlora,
Albania”, the ministry said.
It added that “extradition procedures to Turkey have
been initiated.”
The Istanbul-based Thodex exchange launched
aggressive campaigns to lure investors.
It first pledged to distribute luxury cars through a
flashy advertising campaign featuring famous Turkish models.
But the exchange suspended trading in April 2021
after having posted a mysterious message days earlier saying it needed five
days to deal with an unspecified outside investment.
It went dark after running a promotional campaign
that sold Dogecoins at one-fourth the price at which they were trading on other
exchanges.
But the exchange locked in those investments and did
not allow the coins to be either sold or converted into other cryptos.
Turkish security officials then released a photo of
Ozer going through passport control at Istanbul airport on his way to an
unspecified location.
Media reports said the exchange shut down while
holding at least $2 billion from 391,000 investors and more than 60 people
linked to the company were arrested.
In a statement
Tuesday Albanian police said a 28-year-old Turkish national had been arrested
at a hotel in
Himara, a small town in southern Albania on the Ionian coast.
Two people suspected of having assisted him were
also arrested, police said, with computers, mobile phones, and bank cards
seized.
Footage released by the Albanian police shows a man
lying on a bed in a hotel room with his hands restrained behind his back.
Two days after leaving Turkey last year, Ozer
denounced the “baseless allegations” against him in a message posted on his
company’s official Twitter account.
The businessman said he had gone abroad to meet
investors.
“I will return to Turkey in a few days and cooperate
with the judicial authorities so that the truth comes out,” he promised at the
time.
The manhunt for Ozer came as Turkey’s crypto market
started to unravel. President
Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government warned of the
risks and announced plans to rein in the digital currency market.
Cryptocurrency had proved a way for many Turks to
preserve their savings during a steep drop in the value of the lira and runaway
inflation.
The Turkish currency has lost nearly 27 percent of
its value against the dollar since January.
A number of governments, including the United
States, have said they will introduce tighter regulation on cryptocurrencies
amid concerns over volatile trading and its potential use for criminal
purposes.
In recent years, the crypto sector has benefitted
from a vast infusion of cash due to easy money policies by the world’s biggest
central banks.
However, rampant inflation has sparked tighter
monetary policy across the globe, helping to send the industry crashing.
Bitcoin has lost more than half its value since the
beginning of the year.
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