A Turkish prosecutor wants to slap the founders and executives of the Thodex cryptocurrency exchange with what could be the harshest prison sentence of all time.
Bloomberg reported Friday, citing Demiroren News Agency, that the charges against Istanbul-based Thodex crypto exchange seeks sentences of up to 40,564 years for each of the 21 accused.
According to local media sources, the defendants are among those allegedly implicated in the $108 million Thodex scams.
Faruk Fatih Ozer, founder and Chief Executive Officer of Thodex, is the primary suspect in the investigation and has been labeled a wanted man by local authorities and the Interpol.
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Thodex declared in April that its platform had been “temporarily suspended” because of an “abnormal fluctuation in the company accounts,” while Ozer traveled to Albania with more than $2 billion in investor monies.
At the time, around 62 people were arrested and jailed as part of the investigation process.
The Demiroren News Agency published a photo purportedly of Ozer exiting Istanbul Airport.
That same month, users of Thodex stated that they were unable to withdraw hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of cryptocurrencies, with the 28-year-old Ozer nowhere to be found and refusing to speak with anyone.
At the time of the initial criminal complaint, the crypto…
