Billion-dollar crypto exit scam labelled ‘biggest fraud’ in Turkish history
The founder of Turkish crypto exchange Thodex has allegedly fled the country with $2 billion worth of user funds in an apparent exit scam.
Photographers snapped Faruk Fatih Özer at the airport waiting for a flight to Albania, reported Bloomberg citing local outlet DHA. Daily Sabah otherwise reports Özer fled to Thailand.
Thodex says it halted trade earlier this week after an audit exposed “abnormal fluctuations” in about 30,000 suspicious accounts. The exchange boasts about 390,000 users overall.
Thodex posted a statement to its website which deny the allegations and claims it’s victim of a slander campaign.
Thodex’s statement goes on to say Özer left Turkey to seal the deal on a purported partnership with foreign investors.
Lawyer and politician Sezgin Tanrıkulu labelled the situation “the biggest fraud case in the history of the [Turkish] Republic.”
“He [Özer] founded a company and turned people’s expectations into a fraud,” Tanrıkulu said, according to a translated version of his reported comments.
[Read more: Top 5 Dogecoin whales hold $3B — up from $40M at the start of the year]
Bloomberg noted Thodex saw a user spike after it started offering 150 Dogecoins ($44) to users who verified their accounts in March.
Despite Thodex claiming to have distributed 4 million DOGE ($1.15 million), many users have taken to Twitter to complain they’re yet to receive any.