According to local reports, Faruk Fatih Ozer, the former CEO of the defunct cryptocurrency exchange Thodex, was discovered dead in his prison cell in the western Turkish city of Tekirdag.
An investigation is underway, and authorities are concentrating on the likelihood that Ozer committed suicide.
A suicide inside a prison cell
Two years ago, a Turkish court sentenced Ozer, who oversaw Thodex until its collapse in 2021.
Ozer, a high school dropout, founded the exchange in 2017 escaped to Albania following the company’s demise. In 2022, a court in Albania ordered his extradition to Turkey.
In 2023, he was sentenced to 11,196 years in prison after being proven guilty of aggravated fraud, money laundering through Thodex, running a terrorist group and several other charges.
Turkish media cited estimates as high as $2 billion, despite the prosecutor’s original indictment estimating the overall losses suffered by investors when Thodex collapsed at were about $24 million.
Chainalysis, a blockchain data and analytics company, projected losses of $2.6 billion.
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The incident is a pointer to due diligence and vigilance by investors in unpredictable markets. As the investigation is still going on, only time will tell if new insights and/or reforms will come forth for better protection of the investors.
His death had brought about a lot of scrutiny and investigation from the public regarding the Thodex case. His involvement in the case brought about an inquiry by the public and an extensive investigation.
The early life
Faruk Fatih Özer was born in Istanbul in 1993, according to official documents. Özer had removed all his personal information from the internet before his escape.
Other acquaintances say he had studied in America. Ozer started to work in 2007. His firm, Thodex, was active in Turkey, Myanmar, Azerbaijan, and England. After some years of working in e-commerce, Faruk Fatih Ozer shifted his focus to software technology.
Later on, in 2020, he founded the Gamebridge mobile gaming platform. His death has raised some eyebrows in the crypto sector, and it happened under very unexpected circumstances. The investigation is still ongoing, and creditors with little clue as to what happens next.
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