A man used a seemingly innocent farming game to con people out of tens of millions of dollars.
Mehmet Aydın designed the app with Turkish citizens in mind, and it was arranged like a mobile game.
The game allowed users to upgrade their farm by purchasing upgrades and virtual livestock. The app was named Farm Bank, or Çiftlik Bank in Turkish.
It appears to be a typical mobile gaming platform where users may make purchases with in-game cash and purchase additional in-game currency with real money.
These games use little microtransactions that build up over time.
However, in the instance of Farm Bank, things went a step further because the app also had a feature that allowed users to accumulate gold bars, which they could then cash out for money.
And it didn’t end there.
It was also stated on the app that consumers may invest in ‘real’ animals.
The app was examined by YouTuber @fern-tv in a post on their social media account.
They said: “You can invest your money in virtual livestock, by doing that you automatically invest in real farms that actually exist and the real production of those real animals are then sold in dedicated farm shops.”
At the time the game was released, Turkey’s agriculture sector was facing a number of issues.
This indicated that individuals were drawn to the game because they thought it may provide a means of reviving the nation’s flagging industries.
However, it eventually came to light that the entire game and app was merely a huge hoax.
Around $250 million was reportedly invested on the app in 2017, which is when users began to experience issues with withdrawing their money from the app.
Then, in late 2017, Fern claimed there was a significant development.
Fern said: “In December 2017, [Aydın] suddenly sells his shares in the company. A months later, Çiftlik Bank says it has suspended accepting new users, it also stops paying out profits.”
Authorities eventually acknowledged that the program had been a hoax the entire time a few months later, in March 2018.
Aydın left the nation, then it became a global manhunt.
After the story surfaced, he was eventually discovered in 2021, while hiding out in São Paulo, Brazil.
After being detained, he was extradited back to Turkey, where he might be subject to an absurd 89,000-year prison sentence.
