A Turkish YouTuber and former rapper has been sentenced to 45,376 years and 6 months in prison after convincing over 100,000 people to invest real money into virtual livestock inside a mobile game.
Mehmet Aydın, who uploaded rap music online under the name “Ego Man,” launched a platform called Farm Bank in 2016. The app resembled a Turkish version of Farmville, complete with cartoon cows, chickens, sheep, and small animated farms.
Unlike a casual game, however, Farm Bank invited users to purchase virtual livestock using an in-app gold currency, promising that those animals would generate real returns through the virtual sale of milk, eggs, and honey.
The pitch carried surface-level credibility. The company claimed that money invested would fund actual agricultural projects in the real world, with players receiving a portion of the profits. Farm Bank even created physical show farms that investors could visit in person and opened branded stores carrying company products.
Aydın, who had reportedly been working as a dishwasher before launching the platform, positioned the company as a blend of gaming, agriculture, and investment that would help revolutionize Turkey’s farming industry.
The scheme spread rapidly, drawing somewhere between 75,000 and 130,000 investors and pulling in an estimated $131 million to over $300 million in Turkish lira equivalent. Early investors did receive payouts, which helped fuel word-of-mouth growth as users reported the app genuinely worked. The platform also encouraged ongoing spending on virtual upkeep including supplies, storage, and maintenance costs tied to the hypothetical livestock, keeping users financially committed.
By late 2017, withdrawal complaints began piling up. Turkish regulators opened an investigation, and Farm Bank’s reputation collapsed rapidly. Rather than reassure investors, Aydın sold his shares in the company and backed away from the business at the height of the panic. In early 2018, Farm Bank stopped accepting new users and suspended profit payments entirely.
Aydın then fled Turkey. He was reportedly spotted in Uruguay driving a Ferrari, which drew enough attention to bring Interpol into the search.
Reports indicated bounty posters offering hundreds of thousands of dollars for information about his whereabouts began circulating. He spent more than three years on the run before surrendering at the Turkish consulate in São Paulo, Brazil in 2021 and was extradited back to Turkey shortly after.
Once detained, Aydın gave interviews describing prison life positively, at one point saying “the prison meals were a thousand times better” than Turkish student dorm rooms. He also reportedly stated that if he could go back, he would do it all again without any mistakes.
In February 2025, a Turkish court sentenced Aydın and his brother Fatih Aydın to 45,376 years and 6 months in prison for fraud, money laundering, and running a criminal organization.
