Turkey detained dozens of people in an investigation of a cryptocurrency trading platform and sought its founder's arrest in Albania, police said on Friday, after Turks filed criminal complaints saying they had been scammed.
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The Thodex platform, which had been handling daily cryptocurrency trade worth hundreds of millions of dollars, said on its website on Thursday it would be closed for four to five days due to a sale process.
But users who have not been able to withdraw money or access their accounts voiced concern on Twitter that they may have been defrauded, comments widely picked up by Turkish media.
Police launched raids across eight provinces on Friday with warrants to arrest 78 suspects, Istanbul police said in a statement. A day earlier they searched the company's Istanbul offices and seized materials.
Sixty-two people have been detained so far, the state-owned news agency Anadolu reported.
Istanbul police said the company's founder and CEO, Faruk Fatih Ozer, had flown to the Albanian capital Tirana on Tuesday.
