A man named Mehmet Ayd?n managed to scam people out of an astonishing $130 million using a mobile farming game called Farm Bank, or Çiftlik Bank in Turkish. The game, which appeared to be a standard farming simulation where players could purchase virtual livestock and farm upgrades, offered users the opportunity to earn gold bars that could be withdrawn as currency. Additionally, the app claimed that users could invest their money in real livestock, with the proceeds from the actual farms being sold in dedicated shops. This feature attracted many people in Turkey, who saw the game as a potential solution to the country’s struggling agricultural industry.
However, in 2017, users began encountering issues when trying to withdraw their money from the app. By December of that year, Ayd?n sold his shares in the company, and the app stopped accepting new users and paying out profits. In March 2018, authorities confirmed that the entire operation was a scam, leading to an international manhunt for Ayd?n, who fled the country. He was eventually captured in São Paulo, Brazil, in 2021 and extradited back to Turkey.
Ayd?n now faces a potential prison sentence of up to 89,000 years, a sentence as ludicrous as the scale of his crime. The scandal has left many questioning how such a massive fraud could have been perpetrated through what seemed like a simple mobile game, highlighting the vulnerabilities in online platforms and the trust people place in seemingly innocuous apps.
