Africrypt Founders Vanish With $3.6 Billion In Bitcoin

Africrypt Founders have disappeared with $3.6 billion investors funds in bitcoin.

Gatekeepers News reports that the founding brothers of South African, cryptocurrency investment platform Africrypt, Ameer, and Raees Cajee have reportedly disappeared with investors’ Bitcoin worth $3.6 billion.

A law firm in Cape Town hired by investors said the company’s website is down and it can’t locate the founders of the investment platform.

Also, the law firm stated that repeated calls to their mobile number were immediately directed to a voicemail service.

Gatekeepers News gathered that Africrypt which was set up by the Cajee brothers in 2019, provided huge returns for investors.

The first signs of trouble began in April when the price of Bitcoin skyrocketed. The company’s Chief Operating Officer, Ameer Cajee notified clients that Africrypt had been hacked

Ameer, however, urged them not to report the incident to lawyers and authorities, noting that it would slow down the recovery process of the missing funds.

Some bold investors despite the warning hired the law firm, Hanekom Attorneys to look into the matter. Upon investigation, the firm discovered that Africrypt’s pooled Bitcoin was transferred from its South African accounts and client wallets.

Hanekom Attorneys said, “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.”

The firm also discovered that the coins went through tumblers and mixers or to other large pools of bitcoin to make them very difficult to change.

The founding brothers were completely unreachable after this discovery. Hanekom Attorneys, therefore, suspected foul play.

With the rise in Bitcoin’s value since the beginning of the year, the disappearance of about 69,000 coins will have been worth more than $4 billion at their April peak.

Although this is not the first Bitcoin scam in South Africa, the alleged heist is the biggest-ever dollar loss in a cryptocurrency scam in history.

In 2020, Crypto investors in the country lost millions of dollars when another South African Bitcoin trader, Mirror Trading International collapsed.

Chainalysis, said the collapse which involved about 23,000 digital coins worth about $1.2 billion, was the biggest crypto scam of 2020.

However, Africrypt investors stand to lose three times as much as Mirror Trading International investors

Although following the Mirror Trading scam, the South African government kickstarted plans to regulate the space, the regulations have not been enforced.

The recent incident could however spur regulators’ efforts to impose order on the market, but currently, the government’s hands are tied in prosecuting the Africrypt scam.

The Regulator’s Head of Enforcement, Brandon Topham, said South Africa’s Finance Sector Conduct Authority is also looking into Africrypt, but it is currently prohibited from launching a formal investigation because crypto assets are not legally considered financial products.

The law firm has also reported the matter to an elite unit of the national police force, Hawks, and also told crypto exchanges across the globe should any attempt be made to convert the digital coins.

Gatekeepers News gathered that Crypto investment in South Africa and Africa at large is growing. In January, the daily value of crypto-asset trading exceeded 2 billion rands ($141 million) for the first time in the country.

With the growing number of scams in the country, regulators are hereby advised to consider a strong regulatory blanket on the industry.