Turkish authorities detained 62 people on charges of fraud on the Thodex cryptocurrency exchange. An owner of the exchange fled to Albania, defrauding 400,000 investors for $ 2 billion.
Reuters news agency reports citing Turkish media outlets.
Turkish prosecutor’s office has issued arrest warrants for 78 suspects. 62 people have already been detained, the rest are on the wanted list.
Istanbul police said the founder and CEO of the exchange, Farouk Fatih Ozer, had flown to the Albanian capital Tirana on Tuesday and deactivated his social media profiles.
Abdullah Usame Ceran, a lawyer, filed a criminal complaint against Fatih Faruk Ozer alleging fraud. He said that the platform with 400,000 members does not allow any withdrawal transactions currently.
The Thodex platform previously announced on its website on Thursday it would be closed for four to five days. But users who have not been able to withdraw money or access their accounts decided that they may have been defrauded.
For its part, Thodex said «negative» media reports about it were untrue, and the suspension of the platform is associated with large investments in it.
According to Coinmarketcap, the trading volume on Thodex on the last day of the exchange was $ 538 million.
Last week, Turkey banned the use of crypto assets for payments, goods and services from April 30th.
