He Emptied an Entire Crypto Exchange onto a Thumb Drive. then he Disappeared

A Vigilante Hacker Took Down North Korea’s Internet. He Got a Pig Kidney Transplant. It worked-sort of. Thodex’s trade volume reportedly climbed to $538 million. At the same time, the price of bitcoin soared again, reaching a high of $63,000. Özer had, for a few months, been running a PR blitz for Thodex’s fourth birthday, giving away iPhones, PlayStations, a Porsche Panamera, and Dogecoins. If there ever was a ripe moment to flee with Thodex’s cold wallet, this was it.

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A couple of days later, he looked at his social media accounts. A mob was very angry with him: Customers couldn’t access their money on the exchange Thodex, where he was founder and CEO, and people were accusing him of absconding with their funds. Özer posted a public letter to his company’s website and his social accounts. “I feel compelled to make this statement in order to respond urgently to these allegations,” he wrote. The accusations weren’t true, he said.

He confessed that he planned on eventually escaping to Greece. For nearly a year, Özer sat in an Albanian prison, appealing his extradition back to Turkey. He called the trial “tragicomic.” His appeal was unsuccessful. The once buoyant tech founder was now staring down a prison sentence that could carry an astonishing 43,000 years. “We are trying to explain to the court that if I am extradited, I do not have a chance to get a fair trial,” he wrote to me. In June 2023 he arrived at Istanbul Superior Court. His head was shaved; he still had the scruffy beard.

He Emptied an Entire Crypto Exchange Onto a Thumb Drive. Did he almost get away with the biggest heist in Turkey’s history, or was it all just a big misunderstanding? The 27-year-old had unruly black hair, a boy-band face, and a patchy beard. He pulled his face mask below his chin for the security camera. Faruk Fatih Özer stood in front of a passport control officer at Istanbul Airport, a line of impatient travelers queuing behind him. But this spring day he wore black trainers and a navy-blue sweater hastily pulled over a white polo shirt, as if he had dressed in a dash. Normally he overcompensated for his callow features by dressing in a pressed three-piece suit. Faruk Özer just started a 11,196-year prison sentence. Surely he was nervous.