A Turkish man defrauded investors of millions of dollars through a mobile game. Mehmet Aydin founded the mobile farming game, Farm Bank (Çiftlik Bank in Turkish), with a premise similar to the hit social media game FarmVille. However, in Farm Bank, the developers allowed investors to purchase in-game assets, promised to invest proceeds in real farms, and pay back the investors for spending time on the game. While the outlook was positive, this was actually a ponzi scheme that stole from over 132,000 investors, local news outlet Daily Sabah reported.
Here's how the Farm Bank scam unfolded
At a time when Turkey’s agricultural sector was struggling, the young man came up with a concept to boost the economy and direct investment towards it. In 2016, Aydin and his business partners came up with a game where users would buy virtual animals and farming equipment with real money.
Aydin promised to invest the money in real livestock in different farms across the country. The team even put up products for sale in stores and show farms to convince investors. Furthermore, the game initially paid users for the time spent playing the game.
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This boosted the game's popularity and its meteoric success gained the attention and interest of new investors. However, complaints soon started piling up about the game halting payments for the users. The complaints attracted government attention and Turkey's financial regulators filed a complaint at the end of 2017.
After the action, the company stopped signing up new users, and Aydin announced that investors' money could not be paid back on time as the banks refused to work with the company. At the same time, he sold all of his shares in the company and disappeared.
A public prosecutor's office launched an investigation into the company on charges of "aggravated fraud" and "founding a criminal organization," after Aydin's wife and three other key people of the operation were detained. Aydin reportedly fled to Uruguay where he started a construction business, driving around in a Ferrari, as per the Daily Sabah.
The scale of the fraud
According to a letter from the Istanbul Chief Prosecutor's Office, Mehmet Aydin and his accomplices collected over 1.1 billion Turkish Lira (~$32.2 million) from more than 132,000 investors.
The Chief Prosecutor further estimated that there were 388,099 more players in the game but they did not invest any money. The company only paid 687.8 million Turkish Lira (~$20 million) when they were due to pay over 2.9 billion Turkish Lira (~$85 million), the letter claimed.
Here's what happened to Mehmet Aydin
The mastermind of the “Farm Bank” scam, who was wanted on an Interpol notice, was finally arrested and extradited from Brazil to Turkey in 2021. He and the other founders of the game have been in detention ever since.
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As per the local reports, they are facing charges of running a criminal organization, online fraud, and money laundering. By the time Aydin was arrested, officials had seized assets linked to the companies and confiscated some of the funds which were "obtained through criminal means."
