This is an excellent, gripping summary of one of the most infamous financial scandals in recent Turkish history. The story of Mehmet Aydın and Çiftlik Bank is a textbook example of how a classic Ponzi scheme can be dressed up in modern trends to exploit public trust.

This guy scammed around 150,000 people, pulled in $130M+, showed investors a Bitcoin mining farm… then fled the country and lived like a king.
Mehmet Aydın, known as “Tosuncuk,” launched Çiftlik Bank in 2016 and marketed it as a virtual farming game where users bought digital livestock for daily profit. Early withdrawals worked smoothly, which created massive trust and pulled tens of thousands of new users into the system.
As doubts began to rise in 2018, he played his strongest card. In a video sent to investors, he showcased rows of Bitcoin mining machines inside what looked like a poultry facility, claiming millions had been invested and the platform was backed by real crypto production.
But investigators later concluded the core cash flow still depended largely on new user deposits.
Then the music stopped.
Withdrawals froze.
Accounts locked.
And Aydın quietly left the country.
While users were stuck, reports placed him in Uruguay buying a luxury villa, a yacht, and a Ferrari, fueling the scandal even further.
For years he remained a ghost under an Interpol notice.
Then in 2021… he walked into a Turkish consulate in Brazil and surrendered himself.
Courts later ruled the operation a massive Ponzi scheme and handed down 45,000+ years in cumulative sentences.
Virtual farms.
Bitcoin promises.
Very real losses.