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| Faruk Fatih Ozer [photo credit: Haber] |
A Turkish court condemned Faruk Fatih Ozer and his two brothers, Serap and Guven, to 11,196 years, 10 months and 15 days in prison.
The verdict was issued by an Istanbul court on Thursday after they were found guilty of aggravated fraud, coordinating a criminal organisation, and money laundering.
Mr Ozer ran Thodex, one of the country's largest cryptocurrency exchanges, until it went bankrupt in April 2021 after stealing $2 billion from his customers.
After the collapse, he went offline and disappeared. Over 400,000 of his followers were unable to access their $2 billion in cryptocurrency.
Mr. zer was claimed to have fled to Albania, where he was apprehended after Interpol issued a red alert accusing him of acting fraudulently. Thodex was likewise designated as a criminal group.
Prosecutors had requested that the crypto leader be sentenced to 40,562 years in jail for his crimes.
According to Anadolu official news agency, Mr Ozer told the court, "If I were to establish a criminal organisation, I would not have acted so amateurishly."
Prosecutors claim that when Mr Ozer fled Turkey in April 2021, he transferred $250 million (approximately $30 million at the time) in user assets to three secret accounts, with much of the money ending up in a Malta bank. The brothers were also accused of causing $356 million in damage to clients.
Turkey began imposing lengthy jail sentences after removing the death penalty in 2004, a decision that became vital for their attempt to join the European Union.