OmegaPro co-founder arrested over $4B crypto scam

Andreas Szakacs, co-founder of the now-defunct crypto and forex platform OmegaPro, was arrested in Turkey in July. He is accused of defrauding investors through a $4 billion cryptocurrency Ponzi scheme.

Szakacs, a Swedish citizen who changed his name to Emre Avci after relocating to Turkey, has denied the allegations.

Szakacs’ arrest followed a June 28 tip-off from an anonymous informant, later corroborated by Dutch national 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. 

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 users outside of the United States. 

Local investigators believe OmegaPro’s funds were closely linked to the infamous OneCoin crypto fraud scheme, which also defrauded 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.