The founder and CEO of a Turkish cryptocurrency exchange, suspected of having fled Türkiye with the assets of his clients, has been arrested in Albania, the Turkish Interior Ministry said Tuesday.
Türkiye issued an international arrest warrant in April last year for fugitive businessperson and Thodex founder, Faruk Fatih Özer, who fled with a reported $2 billion (TL 36.3 billion) in investors’ assets.
Tirana informed the Turkish Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu that Özer, wanted with a red notice by Interpol, was arrested in Vlora, Albania, the ministry said in a statement. His identity was confirmed by biometric results, it noted.
The statement said that "extradition procedures to Türkiye have been initiated."
Özer, 27, is being held in the Albanian city of Elbasan, its prosecutor Kreshnik Ajazi told the Sarajevo-based Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN).
Ajazi said Özer would face a court hearing in the coming days, at which the "security measure" of 40 days in custody will be decided upon, after which the process of extradition to Türkiye will start.
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 after posting a mysterious message days earlier saying it needed five days 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 a large number of digital materials and documents seized during operations since last year.
The manhunt for Özer came as the crypto market started to unravel and as President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s government warned of the risks and announced plans to rein in the digital currency market.
The already growing crypto boom in Türkiye further gained pace over the recent years with investors seeking to join a global rally in Bitcoin, shelter against inflation, which now runs at nearly 80%, and protect their savings due to depreciation in the Turkish lira.
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 will 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.