Interpol Red Notice Leads to Arrest of Crypto Exchange CEO – Here’s Why?

Extradited to Turkey, the creator and former CEO of the cryptocurrency exchange Thodex, which has since closed its doors, was taken into custody by Istanbul police shortly after arriving in the city.

Interpol Red Notice Leads to Arrest of Crypto Exchange CEO

According to a report that was published on Thursday by Albanian state media AA.com, Faruk Fatih Ozer, who formed Thodex in 2017, was arrested in Albania in 2018 as a result of an Interpol red alert issued against him.

According to the report, the jet that was carrying Ozer left the Albanian capital of Tirana in the early morning and flew to Istanbul Airport. Once the plane landed at Istanbul Airport, the Istanbul Airport Police Department took possession of Ozer.

It is anticipated that the detained founder would first submit to medical examinations before being transferred to the Istanbul Police Department.

A sudden suspension in trade was imposed by Thodex in April 2021, with the company citing an unnamed partnership transaction as the reason.

On its website, Thodex said that it would be closed for between four and five days because it was in the process of being sold.

The users of the platform, however, started to become concerned after they were unable to access their accounts or withdraw their money, which led to them filing complaints against the platform.

Following this, prosecutors in Turkey issued arrest orders for a total of 78 people involved in the trade, 62 of whom were ultimately taken into custody across the country.

Although it was headquartered in Istanbul, the initiative encompassed all of Turkey’s eight provinces.

A criminal complaint was lodged against the platform’s founder by a lawyer named Abdullah Usame Ceran. Ceran stated that at the time, Thodex had 400,000 subscribers, of which 390,000 were active users of the network.

The Turkish Ministry of Interior made the announcement in August of the previous year that Fatih Ozer had been arrested by Albanian authorities and that the procedure to extradite him to Turkey had commenced.

Allegedly carrying at least two billion dollars’ worth of cryptocurrencies that was taken from Thodex, Ozer escaped Turkey. He is wanted for questioning in connection with charges of fraud as well as creating a criminal enterprise.

In April 2021, Ozer was given a warning signal of “red.”

Crypto is Booming in Turkey Amid Soaring Inflation

Over the course of the past several years, Turkey has witnessed a meteoric rise in the number of people interested in cryptocurrencies and the technology behind blockchains.

According to an estimate contained in a research report published in 2022 by the Turkish cryptocurrency exchange Paribu, there are at least 8 million people in Turkey who are involved in cryptocurrency.

The sky-high inflation and the rapid devaluation of the lira in the country have further pushed people into using digital currencies.

The inflation rate in Turkey reached 85.51% in October of the previous year, making it the highest it has been in the previous 24 years.

“Crypto is basically a savior for many individuals here both from a financial perspective as well as from a mental perspective,” stated Vidal Arditi, the founder of Layka DAO and Lunapark Web3 Hub who is headquartered in Istanbul, in the article. Vidal Arditi is quoted in the research.

Turkey came in at position 12 on Chainalysis’ 2022 Global Cryptocurrency Adoption Index, outperforming other large economies such as the United Kingdom and Indonesia in the process.

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