Africypt, a cryptocurrency investment platform founded by two South African brothers, have gone into the wind along with Investors’ Bitcoin funds worth $3.6 billion.
The brothers – Ameer Cajee, and Raees Cajee, who served as the Chief Operating Officer (COO) and Chief Executive Officer (CEO), respectively, started the cryptocurrency company, Africrypt, in Johannesburg.
Africrypt provided currency exchange services, cryptocurrency investment opportunities, brokerage services, digital payments across the domestic, offshore and international market, consulting and advisory services.
In April, Africrypt COO, Ameer Cajee, notified clients that the company was the victim of a hack. He proceeded to asking investors not to report the incident to lawyers and authorities. According to him, it would slow down the process of recovering the missing funds.
Skeptical investors, however, initiated a lawsuit while another group of investors started liquidation proceedings against Africrypt.
The law firm contacted by the investors, Hanekom Attorneys, said they could not locate the brothers, and further reported the issue to the Hawks, an elite unit of the South African police force.
The law firm have also alerted cryptocurrency exchange platforms across the globe, should any attempt be made to convert the digital coins to cash.
The law firm stated that it became immediately suspicious because the announcement implored investors not to take legal action.
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According to reports, Africrypt employees lost access to the back-end platforms a week before the alleged hack.
Reports of the investigation conducted by Hanekom Attorneys revealed that funds from Africrypt was transferred from its South African accounts and client wallets through tumblers and mixers to make them essentially untraceable.
Africrypt’s website has been down and attempts to reach the brothers returned no results.
The brothers disappeared with about 69,000 coins, which was worth more than $4 billion when Bitcoin peaked at $65,000 – making it the biggest-ever dollar loss in a cryptocurrency scam.
While this involved huge sum, it is not the first time such cryptocurrency scam had happened in South Africa. About a year ago, Mirror Trading Int’l was involved in a Bitcoin scam with $1.2 billion loss to its investors.