Two South African brothers have reportedly vanished with $3.6 billion worth of bitcoin, in what could potentially be the biggest cryptocurrency heist in history.
In 2019, Ameer Cajee and his younger brother, Raees Cajee founded the crypto investment platform, Africrypt, promising investors prolific Returns on Investment (ROI).
Following a surge in Bitcoin’s value in the past year, the disappearance of about 69,000 coins — worth more than $4 billion at their April peak — would represent the biggest-ever dollar loss in a cryptocurrency scam.
Trouble began in April, when the brothers announced that the company was a victim of a hack, leading to the disappearance of about 69,000 coins, Bloomberg reports.
Then Africrypt Chief Operating Officer Ameer Cajee, who is the elder brother, informed clients that the company was the victim of a hack.
He also asked investors not to report the incident to authorities, explaining that doing so would slow down the process of recovering the funds.
However, some suspicious investors reported the case and hired a Cape Town law firm, Hanekom Attorneys, saying they could not locate the two South African brothers. They revealed that the matter had been reported to Hawks, an elite unit of the national police force.
Hanekom Attorneys told the publication over email;
We were immediately suspicious as the announcement implored investors not to take legal action. Africrypt employees lost access to the back-end platforms seven days before the alleged hack.
Also, the law firm said the development has been shared to all crypto exchanges across the globe should any attempt be made to convert the missing digital coins.
Investigators noted that Africrypt’s pooled funds were transferred from its South African accounts and client wallets, and that the coins went through tumblers and mixers or to other large pools of bitcoin in order to make them essentially untraceable.
Also, it was reported that calls to a mobile number for Cajee were immediately directed to a voicemail service and that the company’s website is down.
While South Africa’s Finance Sector Conduct Authority is also looking into Africrypt, it’s reportedly prohibited from launching a formal investigation because crypto assets are not legally considered financial products, according to regulator’s head of enforcement, Brandon Topham
This is not the first of such incidents in South Africa. A South African Bitcoin trader, Mirror Trading International, collapsed in 2020.
In what was described as the biggest crypto scam of that year, it recorded a loss of about 23,000 digital coins worth $1.2 billion, according to a report by Chainalysis. However, Africrypt investors stand to lose three times as much now.
The latest incident is believed to have potentials that can spur regulators’ efforts to impose stringent orders on the market amid rising cases of fraud.
