Ponzi Scheme Fallout: OmegaPro Co-Founder Andreas Szakacs Accused of Defrauding Investors Out of $4 Billion

Crypto Fraud Scandal: OmegaPro Co-Founder Caught in Turkey, Where He Lives Under a Fake Name

The co-founder of the now-defunct cryptocurrency and forex platform OmegaPro, Andreas Szakacs, was detained in Turkey in July. He is charged with scamming investors out of $4 billion via a Ponzi scheme involving cryptocurrencies. Szakacs is suspected of defrauding investors by promising enormous returns through OmegaPro’s “automated trading” algorithm, amassing their money, and then freezing their accounts, according to a report published in local Turkish media on August 22.

Szakacs, a Swedish national who moved to Turkey and changed his identity to Emre Avci, has refuted the accusations. The anonymous denunciation that led to Szakacs’s arrest was confirmed by Dutch national Abdul Mohaghegh, who says he represents 3,000 investors who lost a total of $103 million to OmegaPro. The denunciation came on June 28.

Global Crackdown on OmegaPro: Turkey Seizes Crypto Wallets Amid $160 Million Fraud Investigation

OmegaPro was a cryptocurrency and FX investment company that was founded in 2019 and had its headquarters in Dubai. It provided clients with a range of paid investment packages that could yield returns of up to 300%. On the OmegaPro platform, users are attracted by the lure of small deposits that offer quick profits. Demands for additional funding followed, and eventually user accounts were shut down. The company allegedly stopped accepting withdrawals on November 22, 2022, the same day as the cryptocurrency exchange FTX collapsed and started closing user accounts on November 7, 2022.

• Regulatory fraud warnings on the platform were apparently sent by several jurisdictions, including France, Belgium, Spain, and Peru, before the firm’s collapse.
• Users outside of the United States are said to have been its primary focus.

Authorities in Turkey confiscated 32 cryptocurrency cold wallets, numerous mobile devices, and PCs. Turkish police tracked almost $160 million in transactions, despite Szakacs not giving them any information that would have given them access to the wallets, according to local news source Birgun.

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