Turkey’s Financial Intelligence Unit Begins Investigation Into FTX

An investigation has been launched by the financial watchdog in Turkey into the collapsed crypto exchange FTX.

The agency tackles all money-related crimes in the country and days after FTX filed for bankruptcy in the US, the department disclosed that it had been keeping track of the platform’s operations in Turkey.

FTX investigation

Ankara’s Ministry of Finance has a subordinate body named the Financial Crimes Investigation Board and it recently launched a probe into the bankrupt FTX crypto exchange.

MASAK has now joined the financial authorities in a number of other countries that have taken similar action against the now-defunct crypto exchange.

The agency said that it was now public knowledge that FTX.com had been operating globally as a crypto asset trading platform, but was unable to fulfill its customer obligations.

The news has been widely reported both locally and internationally and is making waves in multiple industries, given how much the FTX empire had expanded its activities.

MASAK made an announcement on Monday in which it said that existing legislation in Turkey dictates that crypto asset service providers are liable entities in accordance with the law related to money laundering activities.

The focus

In addition, the watchdog disclosed that they had been monitoring the activities of such entities linked with FTX in the country quite closely.

The department also said that they would focus on all transactions in the investigation, whether they were conducted via the accounts of crypto providers or electronic money institutions.

The agency said that the results of the investigation would be shared with the administrative and judicial authorities.

On November 11th, FTX officially filed for bankruptcy protection in the US. Its Turkish platform is Ftxtr.com, which has asked its clients to share their bank account details.

According to the Turkish platform, it will send their balances to their bank accounts in Turkish Lira, unless their IBAN is already registered and they will send to it.

Crypto in Turkey

Turkey has been facing rampant inflation and official figures show that it has reached an annual figure of 85%.

This has prompted many Turks to preserve their wealth in cryptocurrencies and they use it as a store of value as well.

The last few years have also seen a number of crypto scams take place in the country and fraud investigations had been conducted against some local exchanges, including Thodex, which is now defunct.

Nonetheless, it should be noted that Turkey is certainly not the only country to have begun an investigation into FTX and its downfall.

It has begun the focus of several investigations in the United States and the financial authorities in the Bahamas have done the same, as that is where FTX has its headquarters.

Apart from that, the Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC) also announced that it had suspended the license issued to FTX (EU) that permitted it to provide its services throughout the European Union.

There has been talking of fraud and mismanagement of customer funds related to FTX so far.