Andreas Szakacs, the co-founder of collapsed crypto and forex platform OmegaPro, was arrested in Turkey in July, alleged to have defrauded investors through a $4 billion crypto Ponzi scheme.
According to an Aug. 22 report from local Turkish media, Szakacs is accused of duping investors by offering huge returns through OmegaPro’s “automated trading” algorithm, accumulating their funds before eventually locking their accounts.
Szakacs, a Swedish citizen who changed his name to Emre Avci after relocating to Turkey, has denied the allegations.
Szakacs’s arrest followed a June 28 tip-off from an anonymous informant, later corroborated by Dutch national Dr. Abdul Mohaghegh, who claims to represent 3,000 investors who collectively lost $103 million to OmegaPro.
Founded in 2019 and headquartered in Dubai, OmegaPro was a crypto and forex investment company that offered investors returns of up to 300% on its suite of paid investment products.
Users of the OmegaPro platform recount initial small investments that provided quick returns. This was followed by demands for further investment, and ultimately, user accounts were locked.
The company reportedly began shutting down user accounts on Nov. 7, 2022, and halted withdrawals by Nov. 22, around the same time as the crypto exchange FTX also imploded.
Omega Pro alerted affiliates their account passwords would be reset on Nov. 22. Source: Omega Pro Instagram
In the lead-up to the firm’s collapse, several jurisdictions, including France, Belgium, Spain, and Peru, had reportedly handed out regulatory fraud warnings concerning the platform. It is reported to have predominantly targeted non-US users.
Turkish police seized computers, various mobile devices, and 32 crypto cold wallets. Despite Szakacs not providing any information that would have allowed authorities to access the wallets, Turkish police were able to track over $160 million in transactions, local news outlet Birgun reported.
Local investigators believe OmegaPro’s funds were closely linked to the infamous OneCoin crypto fraud scheme, which also fleeced investors of $4 billion.
Founded in 2014, OneCoin was exposed as a fraudulent crypto scheme in 2015. In the two years it operated, it swindled its investors out of roughly $4 billion in assets.
Several members of the scheme’s top brass, including Ignatova’s boyfriend Gilbert Armenta, lawyer Mark Scott, former head of legal and compliance Irina Dilkinska, co-founder Karl Sebastian Greenwood, and William Morro, have been criminally prosecuted in the US for their involvement in the scheme.
On June 26, the US Department of State increased the reward for any information that would lead to the arrest and conviction of Ignatova, offering $5 million — a $4.75 million increase from the original $250,000 reward — for information concerning Ignatova’s whereabouts.
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