A Turkish court has sentenced crypto founder Faruk Fatih Ozer and his two brothers, Serap and Guven, to 11,196 years, 10 months and 15 days in jail.

The Istanbul court made the pronouncement on Thursday after finding them guilty of aggravated fraud, leading a criminal organisation and money laundering.

Mr Ozer had run one of the country’s largest crypto exchanges, Thodex, until it collapsed in April 2021 after taking $2 billion from his customers.

He was suddenly offline and went missing after the collapse. Over 400,000 of his members could not access their $2 billion in cryptocurrencies.

Mr Özer was said to have fled to Albania, where he was arrested after Interpol issued a red notice, alleging that he acted with fraudulent intent. Thodex was also labelled a criminal organisation.

Prosecutors had asked the court to sentence the crypto boss to 40,562 years in prison for his crimes.

Anadolu state news agency on Friday quoted Mr Ozer as telling the court, “If I were to establish a criminal organisation, I would not have acted so amateurishly.”

According to prosecutors, Mr Ozer transferred ₺250 million (about $30 million as of then) in user assets to three secret accounts when he fled Turkey in April 2021, with much of the money in a Malta bank. The brothers were also said to have caused ₺356 million of damage to clients.

After abolishing the death sentence in the country in 2004, Turkey started issuing lengthy prison sentences, a move that became necessary for their bid to join the European Union.