Why Did Thodex Close? Faruk Fatih Özer’s Flight, Arrest and Death

Faruk Fatih Özer left Türkiye on 20 April 2021. Within days, customers of his cryptocurrency exchange, Thodex, could not access their money. Turkish prosecutors later confirmed the founder's departure using official travel records, turning a sudden trading suspension into an international criminal investigation.

Özer remained a fugitive until his arrest in Albania in August 2022. He was extradited to Türkiye in April 2023 and received an extraordinary prison sentence that September. Yet his legal story did not end there: an appeals court intervened in January 2025, and he was found dead in a Turkish prison on 1 November 2025.

The collapse took place in 20211. The subsequent arrests, appeals and unanswered questions about customer assets make Thodex an important case long after its final trades.

The day Thodex customers lost access

Thodex operated in Türkiye under a company originally named Koineks Teknoloji A.Ş. The business was established in September 2017 with registered capital of 400,000 Turkish lira, according to the later court's written reasoning.

The platform expanded during a period of rising cryptocurrency interest in Türkiye. It attracted users with promotions, low trading fees and campaigns involving free Dogecoin. Wired's reporting on the company describes how these offers accompanied an aggressive push to acquire traders.

In April 2021, customers found that transactions and withdrawals were no longer functioning normally. The exchange described its interruption as temporary maintenance and referred to an investment or partnership process. But customers did not regain ordinary access.

The Istanbul Anadolu Public Prosecutor's Office opened an investigation on 22 April 2021 after complaints of possible criminal conduct. In its 24 April follow-up, prosecutors confirmed that Özer had left the country on April 20 and that the company's official premises were no longer operating.

That evidence supports the chronology of his departure. It does not, by itself, prove that the full amount of every customer deposit physically left Türkiye with him.

From Istanbul Airport to an Albanian manhunt

Özer's disappearance attracted an international search. Turkish authorities obtained an Interpol Red Notice on 23 April 2021, asking authorities in other countries to locate and provisionally arrest him.

A Red Notice is not an international criminal conviction. It is a law-enforcement cooperation request made while an extradition or related legal process is pending.

The founder remained at large for approximately 16 months. Reuters reported that Albanian police arrested him on 30 August 2022 in the southern coastal area of Himarë, during an operation involving local authorities. Two alleged helpers were also detained.

Albanian courts then considered whether he should be returned to Türkiye. The proceedings included detention rulings, appeals and a judicial extradition order. Özer challenged that outcome but did not succeed.

He was flown from Tirana to Istanbul on 20 April 2023, almost two years to the day after his original departure. Turkish police took him into custody, and criminal proceedings continued.

The timeline from collapse to his death

The milestones are sourced to the Turkish prosecutor's office, court reporting, the extradition record and the Turkish Justice Ministry's prison authority. They do not establish that former Thodex users were fully repaid at any particular stage.

Did Özer flee with $2 billion?

The figure most frequently repeated in coverage is $2 billion. Some reports used it soon after Thodex shut down, and later articles repeated it as the amount Özer supposedly carried away.

The important problem is how the number was produced. The widely circulated figure is a headline-scale estimate, not a final audited customer-loss total. It should not be written as though investigators recovered evidence of exactly $2 billion leaving the country with Özer.

The 2022 criminal indictment, for example, referred to about 356 million Turkish lira in alleged customer losses. A separate later investigation, based on additional complaints, described 94 million lira in alleged harm for its specific complainant group.

These figures cannot simply be added together or treated as interchangeable. They cover different investigations, accounting periods or groups of alleged victims. Exchange trading volume is also not the same thing as assets a platform owes its users.

The platform was reported to have had hundreds of thousands of registered users. That is not a verified count of people who each lost money. A registered account, an active trader and a claimant seeking a court remedy are different populations.

The accurate account is that Thodex collapsed amid major allegations of customer losses. The publicly cited numbers vary substantially, and a definitive all-customer recovery total is not established by the sources reviewed here.

What the investigation found—and what it alleged

The Istanbul prosecutor's office said investigators moved to secure assets while searching for suspects. In a June 2021 statement, prosecutors described seizure orders covering the founder's personal assets, company property and assets linked to other suspects.

These orders are important for possible restitution. But freezing property, bank accounts or vehicles does not establish how much liquid cryptocurrency is available to pay victims.

The indictment alleged deception of Thodex customers and conduct involving fraud, money laundering and a criminal organization. Those allegations proceeded through a criminal trial rather than an ordinary voluntary business wind-down.

Özer disputed the prosecution's account. As described in Wired's interviews and court reporting, he denied operating a criminal organization and argued that he had left to resolve the company's problems, rather than to steal deposits.

That defence was heard during proceedings. It does not erase the original conviction, nor should the prosecution's every allegation be presented as an independently proven fact.

Why was he sentenced to 11,196 years?

On 7 September 2023, an Istanbul court sentenced Özer to 11,196 years, 10 months and 15 days. His siblings Güven and Serap Özer received similarly extraordinary sentences, according to the case reports.

The judgment involved aggravated fraud, organized-crime-related counts and money laundering. The length reflected how Turkish courts combined prison terms across multiple offences and victims.

A 508-page reasoned judgment reported in January 2024 documented the case, its evidence and the court's findings. The original sentence became the headline associated with Thodex around the world.

But that figure needs a legal update. It is historically correct to say he was sentenced to that term in September 2023. It would be misleading to leave readers believing that every part of the judgment remained unchanged afterward.

What changed on appeal in January 2025?

The Istanbul Regional Court of Justice overturned the lower-court ruling on 30 January 2025 and ordered further proceedings. Its decision also affected the treatment of the organized-crime charge against Özer and his siblings.

Some outlets interpreted the decision as Özer being released from prison. That was false. Türkiye's official disinformation-monitoring statement confirmed that he remained detained on fraud-related grounds.

The correct wording is that the huge 2023 sentence was subject to an appeals ruling. It was not an untouched, fully settled final disposition. The appeals decision did not restore Thodex trading or establish that customer claims had been paid.

Özer was found dead in prison in November 2025

The final chapter in Özer's personal history came on 1 November 2025, when prison officers found him dead in a high-security facility in Tekirdağ.

In a statement issued on 2 November, Türkiye's Directorate General of Prisons and Detention Houses said the circumstances indicated suicide. It reported that the Tekirdağ Public Prosecutor's Office had begun judicial and administrative investigations.

His death was also confirmed by Anadolu Agency. Authorities provided details of the investigation, but the reviewed sources do not establish a later, independently published final investigation report.

Özer's death ended his personal involvement in the proceedings. It did not automatically resolve property disputes, establish what happened to every missing cryptocurrency balance or compensate former customers.

Were Thodex customers ever repaid?

Thodex never returned as a normally operating exchange. The criminal investigation led to arrests, asset seizures and court proceedings, but those actions are not equivalent to a complete restitution programme.

The material reviewed does not establish a verified percentage of customers repaid, a universal recovery amount or a live, official claim portal covering every old Thodex balance.

Wired's detailed 2024 account described efforts by lawyers and people connected to Özer to pay some complainants. Those reported individual payments are not proof that all affected users received their money or that remaining claims were extinguished.

Anyone seeking information about an unresolved loss should retain records of deposits, past trading balances, blockchain transfers, emails and formal complaints. In a case involving court actions in Türkiye, reliable advice would need to come from a qualified lawyer or the relevant judicial authorities.

A stranger promising to retrieve Thodex assets for an upfront fee should not be mistaken for a court-approved administrator. Nor can a new account at an unrelated cryptocurrency exchange retrieve money that was held by Thodex in 2021.

Why Thodex became a major crypto fraud case

The case combined elements that rarely occur together: a large retail trading platform becoming inaccessible, its founder leaving the country, an international manhunt, an extradition fight and unusually long criminal sentences.

It also unfolded during a period when many Turkish savers used cryptocurrencies amid economic uncertainty. That environment helped make access to reliable exchanges an important issue, but it does not excuse fraud or prove that all crypto businesses operate alike.

Cryptsy's missing-funds litigation offers a separate example of how a failed exchange and its former operator can face lengthy proceedings. The BTC-e enforcement case involved a different international investigation. Neither follows Thodex's exact legal timeline.

FTX's bankruptcy and creditor repayments show yet another route in which a court-supervised estate sets out formal claims and distributions. Thodex has no verified identical recovery programme.

For readers tracing the history of closed cryptocurrency exchanges, Thodex belongs under 2021 closures. Its founder's arrest in 2022, trial in 2023, appeals ruling in 2025 and death later that year are later milestones, not new closure dates.

Sources and reporting notes

• Istanbul Anadolu Public Prosecutor's Office, April 2021 notice — founder's departure, inaccessible customer accounts and company status.
• Istanbul Anadolu Public Prosecutor's Office, June 2021 asset-seizure statement — early asset-preservation orders.
• Reuters, 31 August 2022 — Albanian arrest.
• Anadolu Agency, 20 April 2023 — extradition and return to Istanbul.
• Anadolu Agency, January 2024 report on the court's written judgment — original September 2023 conviction.
• Anadolu Agency, January 2025 appellate ruling and official clarification of detention — changes to the case without a release from custody.
• Turkish Ministry of Justice prison authority, 2 November 2025 — death confirmation and official investigation.
• Wired, 2 April 2024 investigation — interviews, background and conflicting financial estimates.

Information reviewed 25 October 2026. The article identifies historical claims, court findings and reported losses separately. No final all-customer loss or recovery rate has been independently verified.