South African Brothers Disappear With $6 Billion Worth Of Crypto

Two South African brothers have disappeared from the public with Bitcoin worth $3.6 billion from their cryptocurrency investment platform, Africrypt.

According to reports, investors of the platform have hired a Cape Town law firm to investigate the brothers’ disappearance after reporting that the pair have simply disappeared. A police unit called The Hawks has also been alerted as this could be part of the biggest-ever dollar loss in a cryptocurrency scam.

All crypto exchanges around the world have also been informed of the incident to look out for any attempts to convert the Bitcoin.

Bitcoin’s value has soared in the past year, but nearly 69,000 coins — worth more than $4 billion at their April peak — could now be lost. Coming at the time when there is a spotlight on cases of fraud in crypto, this could trigger more regulation efforts to the sector.

All attempts to reach the brothers - Cajeer and Raees - via their mobile numbers were immediately directed to a voicemail service. The company website is also now down.

This development comes just after the collapse of another South African Bitcoin trader, Mirror Trading International, that happened last year. While those losses amounted to $1.2 billion- making it in the biggest crypto scam of 2020 according to a report by Chainalysis, Africrypt investors stand to lose three times as much.

Before their disappearance, the outlet shares that the older brother, Ameer Cajeer, told clients of the company that the platform was the victim of a hack. He, however, asked them not to report the incident to lawyers and authorities, claiming that it would slow down the recovery process of the missing funds.

Following this announcement, lawyers from Hanekom Attorneys were brought in by investors, along with a separate group, to begin liquidation proceedings against Africrypt.

“We were immediately suspicious as the announcement implored investors not to take legal action,” the firm’s attorneys said in response to Bloomberg’s emailed questions. “Africrypt employees lost access to the back-end platforms seven days before the alleged hack.”

Investigations have revealed that pooled funds were transferred from its South African accounts and client wallets, and then coins went through tumblers and mixers - other large pools of bitcoin - to make them untraceable.

Bitcoin now trades at $30313.88, while Ethereum and Dogecoin are at $1725.58 and $0.23 respectively.