How A Baby-Faced CEO Turned A Farmville Clone Into A Massive Ponzi Scheme

Fraud on the Farm: How A Baby-Faced CEO Turned A Farmville Clone Into A Massive Ponzi Scheme

By Paul Benjamin Osterlund 20 July 2021 • Turkey

Farm Bank let players make money, while supporting real farms. Then the CEO vanished with $80 million.

Fraud on the Farm: How a baby-faced CEO turned a Farmville clone into a massive Ponzi scheme

On November 21, 2019, 25-year-old Recep Ataş stepped onto a shooting range in the Istanbul suburb of Başakşehir. He fired several rounds at the target, before suddenly aiming the weapon directly against his heart and pulling the trigger. The single shot killed him.

The next day, Ataş’ father told local media that his son was depressed  — a large bank loan loomed over him. The money Ataş had borrowed evaporated after he’d invested it in Farm Bank, a smartphone app similar to the once-popular Facebook game Farmville. But unlike Farmville, Farm Bank had a real-world twist.

Launched in 2016, Farm Bank was billed as a way for players to “win as they play, and have fun as they win,” and encouraged them to invest in what they thought was actual livestock and agricultural land. Spurred on by friends and relatives, who claimed to have received returns on their investments, thousands of people rushed to put their money in Farm Bank. In actuality, Farm Bank was a smartphone-based pyramid scheme.

At first, users paid real money for the upkeep of virtual chickens, sheep, bees, and cattle, earning cash back in the game by keeping the animals alive. Players were also given a small cut of the profits for bringing in new players.

Riding high on the good publicity, Farm Bank soon went one step further, launching real-life farms. A local religious leader, a district governor, and a local mayor attended one farm’s opening ceremony in 2017.

The fanfare surrounding these grand openings were little more than PR stunts — the few animals on display weren’t actually being raised with Farm Bank investors’ money — but it all spoke to just how influential the game had become. Advertisements for the game featured stars such as the famous TV actor Mehmet Çevik and depicted expansive farms with actual livestock.

 Farm Bank went on to weave a complicated, meta-business model: in 2017, the company began setting up deli franchises across Turkey. Franchisees paid Farm Bank about $30,000 (100,000 lira) to open shops that sold sausage, cheese, butter, honey, and other goods emblazoned with the Farm Bank logo — suggesting that the produce had come from the company’s livestock. It did not.

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