(Bloomberg) --

Turkey said Albanian police have arrested Fatih Ozer, the founder and CEO of cryptocurrency trading platform Thodex, who has been sought by Turkish authorities over fraud accusations. 

The process to extradite Ozer to Turkey has started, according to a statement from the Interior Ministry.  

Turkish prosecutors are pursuing jail sentences totaling thousands of years for the founders and executives of Thodex. They are accused of establishing a criminal organization, fraud through informatics systems and laundering proceeds from criminal activity, according to the prosecutors. 

Thodex was part of the cryptocurrency boom driven by local investors seeking to protect their savings from soaring inflation and an unstable currency. The prosecution indictment said total losses due to the collapse of the exchange amounted to 356 million liras ($24 million). 

Last year, Ozer disappeared following the shutdown of the platform. Earlier he’d made a statement from an unknown location in which he promised to repay investors and to return to Turkey to face justice at a later date. 

Story Link: Turkey’s Fugitive Crypto CEO Arrested in Albania: Anadolu

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