April 27 (SeeNews) - Turkey-based cryptocurrency exchange platform Vebitcoin has decided to cease activities "in order to fulfil all regulations and claims", it said after local police detained scores of suspects in a probe of the operations of another digital assets trading company.
"Due to the recent developments in the crypto money industry, our transactions have become much more intense than expected," Vebitcoin said in a statement on its website. "We would like to state with regret that this situation has led us to a very difficult process in the financial field."
According to local media reports published last week, Turkish authorities detained four people as part of an investigation into Vebitcoin's activities and blocked the onshore bank accounts of the company.
"Four administrators and personnel of the company were detained on Saturday on allegations of fraud," Daily Sabah quoted a prosecutor in the southwestern city of Mugla as saying over the weekend.
Last week, Anadolu Agency reported that Turkish police arrested 68 people in a probe into suspected fraudulent activities by the operator of local cryptocurrency exchange platform Thodex, which is currently inaccessible. Hundreds of thousands of users of Thodex have been left unable to access their digital assets after the exchange platform abruptly halted trading last week, thus raising fraud concerns.
Many in Turkey have turned to cryptocurrencies to shield their savings from rising inflation and the depreciation of the Turkish lira. Last week, Turkey's central bank announced that it was banning the use of cryptocurrencies for the purchase of goods, according to Daily Sabah.