An Albanian court on Thursday ordered the extradition of the founder of a Turkish cryptocurrency exchange who had fled Türkiye with the assets of his clients.

Türkiye issued an international arrest warrant in April last year for Faruk Fatih Özer, a fugitive businessperson and Thodex founder, who fled with a reported $2 billion in investors’ assets.

Özer was arrested in Albania in late August and Türkiye had been seeking his extradition.

The Elbasan Court of First Instance on Thursday ruled for Özer to be extradited to Türkiye.

Judge Elis Dine said the decision can be appealed to the Durres Court of Appeal within 15 days.

Previous hearings on the case were held on Oct. 6, Oct. 21, Nov. 1, Nov. 10, and Nov. 14.

Thodex launched aggressive campaigns to lure investors. It had first pledged to distribute luxury cars through a flashy advertising campaign featuring famous Turkish models.

But the exchange suspended trading in April last year after posting a mysterious message days earlier saying it needed time to deal with an unspecified outside investment.

The Istanbul-based Thodex went dark after running a promotional campaign that sold Dogecoins at one-fourth the price at which they were trading on other exchanges.

But the exchange locked in those investments and did not allow the coins to be either sold or converted into other cryptos.

Turkish security officials then released a photo of Özer going through passport control at Istanbul Airport on his way to an unspecified location.

Media reports said the exchange shut down while holding at least $2 billion from 391,000 investors.

More than 60 people linked to the company have been arrested, and an extensive cache of digital materials and documents have been seized in operations since last year.

Türkiye is being named among the largest crypto markets in the world. Even though it is hard to know the actual number, there are an estimated 5 million active crypto investors in the country.

The high interest in the nation of 84 million added to growing worries over the risks and vulnerabilities of the unregulated digital currency market as companies fold.

A number of governments, including those of India, China and Russia, have said they would introduce tighter regulation on cryptocurrencies amid concerns over volatile trading and its potential use for criminal purposes.

In recent years, the crypto sector has benefitted from a vast infusion of cash due to easy money policies by the world’s biggest central banks.

However, rampant inflation has sparked tighter monetary policy across the globe, helping to send the industry crashing.