An illustration picture taken in London on May 8, 2022, shows gold plated souvenir cryptocurrency Tether (USDT), Bitcoin and Etherium coins arranged beside a screen displaying a trading chart. – Tether (USDT) is an Ethereum token known as a stablecoin that is pegged to the value of the US dollar, and is currently the largest stablecoin with a market value of USD 83 billion dollars. (Photo by Justin TALLIS / Agence France-Presse)
ISTANBUL, Turkey — Two managers of a now-defunct crypto trading platform have been arrested in Istanbul, Turkish media reported Friday.
Robert Velghe, a Dutch executive at OmegaPro, was arrested Tuesday, the reports said, after Andreas Szakacs, a Swede who was among the firm’s founders, was arrested in July.
According to NTV television and the pro-government daily Sabah, the managers of OmegaPro, created in 2018 and registered in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, had made off with $4 billion in profit from the platform, which promised investors extremely high profits.
Neither Turkish government officials nor the justice authorities responded when asked for comment.
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French prosecutors are pursuing an inquiry into OmegaPro, sources told Agence France-Presse in June.
A complaint was filed in France at the end of February on behalf of “nearly 2,000 victims” for fraud, breach of trust and deceptive commercial practices by an organized gang, according to the French association Capital.
According to the association’s lawyers, OmegaPro had promised investors returns “of up to 300 percent over a maximum period of 16 months.”
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The company began to wobble at the end of 2022, leading to a freeze of its funds.
Its internet site disappeared in July 2023, before investors could get their money back. Instead, they were offered to reinvest their money in a new venture, Go Global.
Lawyers say French clients lost “several hundred millions of euros.”