Faruk Fatih Özer as soon as took a {hardware} pockets holding $2 billion price of crypto by way of airport safety whereas fleeing arrest. This week, he’s coming into jail to begin a 11,196-year jail sentence.

Özer based Thodex, Turkey’s once-largest crypto trade, and used it — with assist from his household — to steal untold sums from his clients.

His brother and sister obtained the identical, 11,196-year sentence. That’s, the decide famous, extra years than 50 people might bodily serve and the longest sentence ever handed down by a Turkish court docket.

Learn extra: Thodex chief denies fraud, says crypto trade was hacked

Throughout his last days of freedom, Özer had grown his beard out to his chest and was taxiing to southern Albania with a tent, desiring to camp alongside the shoreline. Legislation enforcement finally discovered him at a social gathering.

By then, he had no {hardware} pockets containing $2 billion, claiming he’d emptied it, used the funds to pay again victims, and thrown it into the Ionian Sea.

The Instanbul Superior Courtroom didn’t even touch upon that extraordinary declare when handing him and his siblings a mixed 43,000-year sentence.

It took 62 arrests and coordinated legislation enforcement throughout a half dozen international locations to lastly discover Özer. All through all of this and even at his last sentencing, Özer denied allegations of fraud and claimed {that a} third-party hacker stole funds from his trade.

Faruk Özer is now in jail till his 11,196 yr and 10 month sentence expires within the yr 13,221.

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