A Turkish cryptocurrency boss and his two brothers have been jailed for 11,196 years each for defrauding investors of millions of dollars.
Faruk Fatih Ozer, 29, fled to Albania in 2021 with investors' assets after his Thodex exchange suddenly collapsed.
He was extradited to Turkey in June and found guilty of money laundering, fraud and organized crime.
Ozer told the court he “would not have acted in such an amateurish manner” if his intention had been criminal, state media reported.
“I am intelligent enough to lead any institution on Earth,” he said, according to Anadolu Agency.
“That’s evident in this company I founded when I was 22.”
The brief trial in Istanbul also found his sister Serap and brother Guven guilty of the same charges.
Turkish news agencies stated that the defendants were separately convicted of multiple crimes against 2,027 victims, which totals the number of years on trial.
Such extraordinary prison sentences have been common in Turkey since the abolition of the death penalty in 2004.
Adnan Oktar, a cult TV preacher, was jailed for 8,658 years in 2022 for fraud and sexual crimes. Ten of his followers received the same sentence.
Prosecutors asked that Ozer be sentenced to 40,562 years in prison, AFP reported.
Turks have begun using cryptocurrencies as a defense against a deep drop in the value of the lira that began more than two years ago.
Thodex was founded in 2017 and has become one of the largest virtual currency exchanges in the country.
Ozer gained national fame as a financial genius and won his way into the system by befriending prominent pro-government figures.
However, the platform suddenly imploded in April 2021. Investors' assets disappeared and Ozer went into hiding.
He was arrested last year in Albania on the basis of an international Interpol warrant and extradited after a lengthy legal process.
Turkish media previously reported that Ozer had fled with assets worth US$2 billion (£1.6 billion).
The prosecutor's indictment, however, estimates the total losses to Thodex investors at 356 million lira.
This amount was worth around US$43 million at the time of the exchange's implosion.
The same amount is now worth around 13 million dollars due to rampant inflation and the collapse of the lira in international markets.
