ANKARA (Middle East Eye) – The founder of cryptocurrency exchange Thodex, suspected of having fled Turkey with the assets of his clients, has been arrested in Albania, the Turkish interior ministry said on Tuesday.
Turkey issued an international arrest warrant in April last year for fugitive businessman Faruk Fatih Ozer, who fled with a reported $2bn in investors’ assets.
Tirana had informed Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu that Ozer “was arrested in Vlora, Albania”, the ministry said. It added that “extradition procedures to Turkey have been initiated”.
Ozer, 28, is being held in the Albanian city of Elbasan, its prosecutor Kreshnik Ajazi told the Sarajevo-based Balkan Investigative Reporting Network.
The Thodex exchange used aggressive campaigns to lure investors. It first pledged to distribute luxury cars, through a flashy advertising campaign.
But the exchange suspended trading in April last year 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-quarter 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.