$3.6 billion in Bitcoin disappears with Africrypt founders

Two South African brothers, Ameer and Raees Cajee, have reportedly disappeared, taking $3.6 billion worth of bitcoin with them, according to Bloomberg. The incident would make it one of South Africa’s biggest ever incidents related to crypto. The total amount that’s been recorded as stolen is 69,000 BTC.

The two brothers were the creators of a platform called Africrypt, which first showed signs of trouble earlier in the year. Investors hired a law firm to look into the case after Ameer Cajee said that the company was a victim of a hack in April. At the time, the company held over $4 billion worth of bitcoin.

He also asked investors not to report the incident to authorities, which further raised signs of trouble. His purported explanation was that it would slow down the process of recovering the funds. However, soon after, investors hired the Hanekom Attorneys law firm to investigate the incident.

Employees at the firm lost access to back-end platforms seven days before the founder revealed the alleged hack, according to the report. The country’s national police force has been assigned to the case, which has contacted crypto exchanges to ensure that the funds aren’t liquidated.

However, the bitcoin has been sent through mechanisms that prevent tracing — tumblers and mixers and large pools of bitcoin, which is making it hard to track the funds. The company website has also been shut down.

The Cajee brothers launched Africrypt in 2019, promising investors good returns for their money. This is not the first such incident to take place in South Africa, with another company involved in a $1.2 billion scam in 2020.

Chainalysis, in its 2021 Crypto Crime Report, noted that illicit activity as measured by the amount of funds involved had reduced significantly since 2019, but remained an issue. It totaled over $10 billion in transaction volume.

Source: finance.yahoo