Bitcoin BTC: CEO of Turkish cryptocurrency exchange Thodex missing

Before fleeing Turkey, Ozer reportedly contemplated suicide or giving himself up to the authorities. Thedox posted a statement on its website on Thursday saying it would be closed for four to five days due to a sale process. According toAnadolu, Turkish authorities started investigating Thodex for aggravated fraud on Thursday following a complaint filed by a lawyer named Abdullah Usame Ceran.

His shutting down all his social media accounts also fueled the speculations on the fraud allegations. LONDON — A Turkish cryptocurrency exchange is offline and its CEO has reportedly gone missing, leaving thousands of investors worried that their funds have been stolen. Turkish cryptocurrency exchange Thodex abruptly halted trading this morning without prior notice, locking up the funds of its 391,000 active traders.

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Trading in financial instruments and/or cryptocurrencies involves high risks including the risk of losing some, or all, of your investment amount, and may not be suitable for all investors. Prices of cryptocurrencies are extremely volatile and may be affected by external factors such as financial, regulatory or political events. A new profile, apparently belonging to the executive, shared the latest Thodex statement on April 22 and has since claimed the company is creating an “interface” to allow users to request their funds. On Thursday, Istanbul-based Thodex posted a notice on its website informing users that the exchange would be closed for several days in order to handle a “sales” process. The Thodex exchange suspended trading after posting a mysterious message on Wednesday saying it needed five days to deal with an unspecified outside investment. Thodex CEO Faruk Fatih Özer left the country last evening, per police records shared with Kılıç, and deleted his social media accounts.

“Services will remain closed for about five working days while the share transfer is completed, but users needn’t worry about their investments,” it said. Platform abruptly halted trading Wednesday, spurring fraud allegations and thousands of criminal complaints. As Benzingareportedyesterday, rumors suggested that Thodex founder, Faruk Fatih Özer, fled to Thailand with $2 billion of user funds. Mertcan Bayraktar, who represents seven investors, including one person with 3 Bitcoin ($150,000) locked up in Thodex, told Decrypt that Özer also owes customers any profits they made trading crypto. Özer added that the company is still recovering from a cyberattack in April 2018 that drained 25 million Turkish liras (then around $6 million) from the exchange. The company’s investigation, completed last week, found evidence of further cyberattacks.

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• For now, the exchange has not made any official announcement about the situation on the ground, but activities surrounding the key players of the platform raise alarm about their intention.
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• LONDON — A Turkish cryptocurrency exchange is offline and its CEO has reportedly gone missing, leaving thousands of investors worried that their funds have been stolen.

Some say that the Turkish investors who actively used the platform were suspicious of the company even before it announced the suspension of its services on April 21 last year. This is because, since etx capital account review April 14, the exchange had been selling DOGE at a stable rate of $ 0.11. However, on April 16 the value of DOGE on other exchanges reached $ 0.42, resulting in many asking what was going on.

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The Turkish crypto market remains unregulated despite growing scepticism from President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government about the safety and use of digital currencies. Right now, the Public Prosecutor’s Office sued Thodex personnel to provide cheapest way to buy bitcoin testimonies on the exchange platform for the complaints worth $2 billion assets from 391,000 active investors. It is estimated that the Thodex exchange has shut down with between $2-10 billion of investors’ hard-earned money irretrievable.

• Turkey’s central bank recently banned the use of cryptocurrencies for purchasing goods and services.
• Thodex CEO Faruk Fatih Ozer has reportedly fled the country and is now in Albania, according to local sources.
• The Istanbul Public Prosecutors Office opened an fraud investigation into the owner, and an investigation into Thodex in the scope of tax offenses and Consumer Protection Law.
• Trading in financial instruments and/or cryptocurrencies involves high risks including the risk of losing some, or all, of your investment amount, and may not be suitable for all investors.

The day before yesterday, the exchange announced that it would halt its activity for four to five days, and customers were unable to access their funds. Despite all of the ruckus, “no customer will be affected,” said Özer, claiming that the company holds funds equivalent to customers’ original deposits on the exchange. The police today detained 62 people, and the government is preparing to have him extradited from Albania. Turkey’s central bank recently banned the use of cryptocurrencies for purchasing goods and services. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has called for swift regulation, warning of “pyramid schemes” emerging in the crypto markets.

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The cryptocurrency is getting particularly popular among Turks who are looking to preserve their saving in the middle of a sharp decline in the value of the local currency, the lira. But the exchange locked in those investments and did not allow the coins to be either sold or converted into other cryptos. Thodex went dark after running a promotional campaign that sold Dogecoins at one-fourth the price at which they were trading on other exchanges. The views and opinions expressed by the author are for informational purposes only and do not constitute financial, investment, or other advice.

• “Wallets can be stolen or used unlawfully without the authorisation of their holders,” the central banks warned last week.
• There are allegations that the 27-year-old Thodex CEO fled to Albania, Thailand, or the United States.
• It was a Dogecoin rewards campaign where they stated that they will distribute 2 million dogecoin, 150 per new user that signs up.
• Platform abruptly halted trading Wednesday, spurring fraud allegations and thousands of criminal complaints.
• According toAnadolu, Turkish authorities started investigating Thodex for aggravated fraud on Thursday following a complaint filed by a lawyer named Abdullah Usame Ceran.

Last Friday, the Turkish government legally recognized crypto assets but banned crypto payments. It also barred fintech firms from directly or indirectly dealing with crypto, which mostly affects foreign crypto exchanges relying on local fintechs to operate in the country since local banks won’t partner with them. But the Thodex exchange halted trading in April after conveying a mysterious message days earlier stating it required five days to deal with an unidentified outside investment. The last time an outgoing transaction was made on Thodex was on April 17, 2021.

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The exchange, which has operated since 2017, today shared a statement on Twitter, citing an unspecified outside investment that required the suspension of trading for 4-5 days. Customers fear a rug pull as Turkish crypto exchange Thodex abruptly halted trading. Since last year, more than 60 suspects have been arrested in the country for their links with the company. The investing agencies also seized a large number of digital materials and documents during operations. Faruk Fatih Ozer fled Turkey with a reported $2B of investors’ funds with him.

It is according to him that Özer fled to Thailand with the money of the exchange’s nearly 700,000 purported users. The CEO of Turkish crypto exchange, which Wednesday vanished overnight, denied fraud allegations and vowed to return funds. In 2019, Canadian crypto exchange QuadrigaCX went bankrupt after its CEO died, resulting in millions of dollars’ worth of digital assets being trapped in a digital wallet.

In the mean time, Faruk Fatih Özer, the owner of the exchange, left Turkey for Tirana Albania with $2B of cryptocurrency in their possession. Thodex was the first global exchange based in Turkey and of the 40 cryptocurrency exchanges in Turkey at the time, it was one of the big ones. It had 391,000 users when it froze in April 2021 and the owner dcg is seeking to invest in grayscale bitcoin trust fled Turkey with the clients money. In a statement, the exchange claimed that it had found an ‘abnormality’ in its accounts and that it shut down the exchange to investigate this. On the CEO leaving Turkey, it claimed this was only to meet overseas investors. He will be returning soon to cooperate with the authorities, the exchange claims.

Thousands of Turkish citizens have now filed criminal complaints against the company, alleging that they have been victims of an exit scheme. A lawyer acting for the complainants said the allegedly stolen funds were “irretrievable.” According to local media reports, Turkey has issued an international arrest warrant for Faruk Fatih Özer, who has allegedly been spotted leaving Turkey via Istanbul airport in order to enter Albania. Sources claim Udoka’s long-time partner knows the identity of the female staffer. “Wallets can be stolen or used unlawfully without the authorisation of their holders,” the central banks warned last week.

However, suddenly unable to access their cryptocurrency accounts or withdraw funds, users began to voice concerns that they had been scammed. Between March 15 and April 15, just before the Dogecoin frenzy began, the exchange ran an enormously successful marketing campaign, rewarding every new sign-up with 150 DOGE. Thousands of new users reportedly flocked to the exchange, and its trading volume Saturday reached a daily record of $1.37 billion, the highest daily figure over the past year, as per data from CoinGecko. The presented content may include the personal opinion of the author and is subject to market condition.

That year Thodex was also licensed by Financial Crimes Enforcement Network as a Money Service Business The total transaction volume on Thodex was ~$3 as of November 2020. The exchange had various rewards campaigns to draw in new users and new capital. ISTANBUL—The Prosecutors of Turkey opened an investigation for fraud complaints against Istanbul-based cryptocurrency exchange Thodex on April 22 while Thodex CEO Fatih Faruk Özer is reportedly missing.

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Later, Turkey issued an international arrest warrant for him in April last year. The Thodex crypto scam is viewed as one of the biggest crypto scams in history. What would turn out to be the last of these rewards campaigns ran from 15 March to 15 April 2021. It was a Dogecoin rewards campaign where they stated that they will distribute 2 million dogecoin, 150 per new user that signs up. This campaign was set up in the month leading up to what is known by fans of Dogecoin as Dogeday a day at which Dogecoin fans expected Dogecoin to go up in price significantly.

Excellent John K. Kumi is a cryptocurrency and fintech enthusiast, operations manager of a fintech platform, writer, researcher, and a huge fan of creative writing. With an Economics background, he finds much interest in the invisible factors that causes price change in anything measured with valuation. According to the state-run news agency, prosecutors issued 78 warrants after the exchange’s chief exec was accused of defrauding its 390,000 users.