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The founder of collapsed Turkish crypto exchange Thodex, Farouk Fatih Özer, has been sentenced to 11,196 years, 10 months, and 15 days in prison along with his sister Serap Özer and brother Güven Özer, and fined for 135 million liras ($5 million). The Anatolian 9th Heavy Penal Court announced the verdict on Thursday. Özer was accused of running off to Albania with $2 billion in customer funds when Thodex , one of the largest crypto exchanges in Turkey at the time, suddenly went dark in April 2021. The Thodex founder was extradited back to Turkey in April 2023. Serap and Güven Özer were also detained, along with at least 83 others. However, the court acquitted 16 of the 21 defendants and released four of seven in jail due to lack of evidence. Several others were given prison sentence s for various offences. Thodex chief receives jail sentence for tax evasion amid ongoing $2B fraud trial Read more: Thodex chief denies fraud, says crypto exchange was hacked According to the p...

The host of a weekly crypto radio show received a two-year prison sentence on Wednesday after deceptively applying for over $660,000 in Covid-19 relief funds and spending the money on building his own Alpaca farm and running a crypto show. Fifty-nine-year-old Dana McIntyre hosted The Dana Crypto Show and owned the Rasta Pasta Pizzeria in Beverley, Massachusetts. As detailed by the US Attorney’s Office, in March 2020 McIntyre applied for two different Covid-19 relief benefits under the names of his two children for two non-existent companies, one of which was called “Dana’s Dank Pies.” In an application, he claimed to have no work and no income despite still running and profiting from his pizzeria. He received $17,000 from the government in September 2020. McIntyre also successfully applied for a further Covid-19 relief fund of $660,000 in April 2020. For this form, McIntyre falsified the number of his employees, payroll amounts, and tax forms in order to receive the larger ...

UAE-based Nigerian influencer ‘Mr. Woodbery’ has been sentenced to eight years and four months in prison for scamming US businesses out of $8 million, and must now pay back that amount to his victims and give up a fleet of luxury cars and watches, on top of 151 bitcoin ($4.5 million) already forfeited. According to the US Department of Justice (DoJ), 31-year-old Olalekan Jacob Ponle, otherwise known as ‘Mr. Woodbery’ and ‘Mark Kain,’ stole millions while living in the UAE in 2019. The fraudster relied on money mules to convert stolen funds into bitcoin. Ponle bought himself luxury cars with the illicit gains, including a Rolls Royce Cullinan, Lamborghini Urus, and a Mercedes-Benz G-Class AMG G55. The Nigerian also had a taste for Rolex and Patek Philippe watches, the DoJ noted. These items have since been confiscated by dripped out authorities. ‘Mr. Woodbery’ was part of a scamming group that tricked employees into interacting with ph...