Faruk Fatih Özer

Faruk Fatih Özer (born 1993 or 1994) is a Turkish criminal, former cryptocurrency trader, and former fugitive.

He founded Thodex exchange, before its collapse in 2021. In September 2023, Özer was sentenced to 11,196 years in prison for crimes including fraud.

Biography
Faruk Fatih Ozer was born 1994 (age 29) and has two siblings, a sister, Serap, and a brother, Guven.

He dropped out of high school before founding the cryptocurrency exchange Thodex in Istanbul in 2017. Thodex became one of Turkey's biggest crypto exchanges and Ozer became a celebrity in Turkey, photographed associating with politicians including Mevlut Cavusoglu and Suleyman Soylu.

Thodex collapsed in April 2021. Ozer shut down his social media profiles and flew to Albania on April 20, 2021. Turkish authorities launched an investigation into the company on April 22 before accusing it of defrauding 390,000 investors out of approximately US$2 billion. Ozer rejected the fraud allegation and said his company had temporarily closed its trading platform to investigate a cyber attack.

An Interpol international arrest warrant was issued for Ozer in April 2021, leading to his arrest in Albania on August 30, 2022. He was extradited to Turkey in April 2023.

At an Istanbul court, on September 7, 2023, Ozer was fined 135 million Turkish liras (approximately US$5 million) and sentenced to 11,196 years in prison after being found guilty of various charges including fraud. His brother and sister were among the 20 other accused, and were both issued with the same sentences. Prosecutors state that the crimes had 2,027 victims.