Analyst firm Whitestream found that between August 2020 and February 2021, about 5,000 BTC were transferred from the wallets of the closed Turkish Thodex exchange to the addresses of the Kraken exchange.
At the time of the transactions, the total amount of bitcoins was $ 125 million, and at the current exchange rate it is more than $ 280 million. In an appeal by Whitestream to the Israeli Ministry of Defense, it is said that transactions are similar to “withdrawing customer funds.” That is, the management of Thodex simply stole the client’s funds.
As a reminder, on April 22, the work of the Turkish Thodex exchange was stopped, and the funds of 391,000 traders disappeared. The founder of the site went on the run. Initially, the Turkish authorities assumed that the losses of the exchange’s clients exceeded $ 2 billion, but subsequently the estimate was reduced to $ 102 million. This is quite close to the approximate estimate of Whitestream.
According to the CEO and co-founder of Whitestream Itsik Levy, funds from wallets owned by Thodex were sent to intermediate addresses, and subsequently most of the BTC ended up on the Kraken site. According to analysts, these transactions may have “legitimate”, albeit unlikely, rationale.
“This could be explained if all Thodex operations were conducted through the Kraken site. But this is extremely strange. ”
Currently, the Turkish police are investigating the activities of the Thodex exchange and the loss of client funds.
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