He told the court he grew his beard down to his collarbone and shaved his head. When he learned of the prosecutor's indictment, he realized that his brother and sister had been charged with fraud and would stand trial within a month, and that if Ozer had not been present, he would probably be responsible for Sodex's bankruptcy. He said he would spend the rest of his life with him. He lives in prison. He came up with a crazy idea. If all claimants were repaid, did the crime really occur? In fact, he told the judge that he had a Sodex cold wallet, although he claims he cannot remember how much money was in it. He asked Mr. Eraslan to help repay the approximately 2,000 plaintiffs who had lost money.
And they partially did. While on the run, he paid a total of about 185 million lire ($10 million at the time) to more than 1,000 claimants. According to Ozer, when the cold wallet was emptied, he threw it into the Ionian Sea.
When he mentioned using someone else's account for cryptocurrency transactions (the act at the center of this case), he began to sound defiant and a little condescending. “Due to the nature of startups, startup founders take full responsibility,” he said. He stressed that they have no authority within the company and do not have access to these accounts. “There is no tort or wrongdoing. Furthermore, I am not the first, last, or only person to arbitrage in the cryptocurrency market.”
Near the end of the speech, Ozell's frustration seemed to turn to bitterness and arrogance. “The IQ level of the person who planned such a foolish escape plan is the same as that of the criminal mastermind who deceived Turkish financial regulators for four years,” he told the judges. It's ridiculous to think about that.” “I'm smart enough to lead any organization on the planet,” Orzel said. He then had Eraslan pull out a cartoon image mocking the court. The presiding judge, clearly annoyed, ordered him to remove it.
The verdict was handed down quietly on a balmy Thursday in September 2023 in a nearly empty courtroom. Ozer stood up and solemnly read out the lyrics of the Turkish folk song “The End of the Road Is Seen.''
The presiding judge sentenced Güben, Serap and Ozer to the same sentence of 11,196 years in prison for establishing and managing a criminal organization and laundering assets. Most of the other defendants were released. It was the longest sentence in Turkish history, handed down a month before the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Turkish Republic.
Faruk Fati Ozer He has become a symbol of crypto crime, but he also happens to represent a particular economic era and the lengths people will go to to escape it. To the Turkish regime, he was more an unfortunate product of flawed economic policies than an adversary. From that perspective, this harsh sentence is not only a punishment for the crime, but also for shining a spotlight on decades of shameful failures, failures that were made clear to the entire country on the day Ozer disappeared. There is also.
Therefore, it may not be surprising that Turkey remains a haven for cryptocurrencies. The year after Sodex went bankrupt, the country's inflation rate reached 85.5%, the highest level in 24 years. The price of goods has almost doubled, and the percentage of Turks owning Bitcoin, Ether, and other currencies has increased as well. In terms of trade volume, the country ranks fourth in the world after the United States, the United Kingdom, and India. Turkish people, who have been forced to stay home and do business due to the devaluation of their currency for decades, have no intention of giving up on their dreams so easily. Earlier this year, the country's finance minister said the government was working on finalizing new regulations on cryptocurrencies to “make this sector safer and eliminate possible risks.” So Ozer fought the dictatorship and lost, whether it was because he believed the gospel of decentralization too fully, or because he was a naive child, or because he was a cynical brawler, or because he was a cynical brawler, or some three. I don't know if it was a combination of all three, but the fire in the economic world went out. The revolution he helped his fans through isn't going to end anytime soon.
jenna scatena An independent journalist from San Francisco, currently based in Istanbul.
Additional reporting by Beril Eski, Gülşah Karadağ, and Vladimir Karaj.
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