TL;DR Breakdown
- Exchange firm CEO runs away with over $2 billion
- Users drag exchange and CEO to court
The CEO of Thodex exchange, a Turkish exchange firm, Faruk Fatih Ozer, is alleged to have absconded with $2 billion belonging to the Turkish exchange platform users. However, authorities have begun investigating the case to find out what happened.
Bloomberg on Wednesday reported that the Turkish exchange platform halted trading because of an unspecified partnership transaction. Thodex exchange also released a statement noting that services would be shut down for five working days and reassured users that their funds locked in the platform are safe.
However, users of the platform complained of not being able to access services on the exchange platform even after the five working days had elapsed. A user on Twitter, @FeraSY1, said for 20 days, he has not been able to withdraw both in fiat and crypto and said the website has also been offline for this while.
Some users posted on social media that their investments were “stuck,” while dozens of other complaints appeared on sikayetvar.com, a popular online forum for consumer complaints. Bloomberg reports have it that the exchange CEO stopped giving any update about the situation and had fled the country already.
Fraud allegations creep in as users file lawsuit against Turkish exchange
After hearing the CEO, Ozer, had fled from Turkey, users of the exchange hired a law firm to sue the Turkish exchange firm. Oguz Evren Kilic, who represents several users of the exchange, confirmed that a lawsuit has been filed against Ozer and Thodex exchange on Wednesday.
The lawyer noted that the amount locked in the crypto platform is worth several hundreds of millions of dollars as over 300,000 people use the platform to trade crypto. A prosecutor in Istanbul has reportedly launched an investigation.
Other reports have it that Ozar ran off to Thailand with about $2billion belonging to users of his exchange firm.
