Security News > 2021 > June > Three things that have vanished: $3.6bn in Bitcoin, a crypto investment biz, and the two brothers who ran it

Up to $3.6bn in Bitcoin has disappeared from a South African cryptocurrency investment outfit as well as the two brothers who ran it.

Africrypt, led by founder and CEO Raees Cajee and his sibling and COO Ameer, claimed two months ago it had been hacked and had to halt its operations.

A group of 20 or so of those investors have since hired a law firm to investigate the fiasco, and obtained from the South African courts a provisional liquidation order against Africrypt.

Africrypt's business model may not come as a surprise: it persuaded investors to hand over six or seven-figure sums, and promised them as much as ten per cent daily returns by investing the cash into crypto-coins.

It's rumored the brothers have fled to somewhere in the UK. The lawyers hired by the investors found, through blockchain analysis, that coins from Africrypt's wallets had been run through Bitcoin mixers and tumblers to hamper any further tracing.

South Africa's financial watchdog, the Financial Sector Conduct Authority, is said to be mulling an investigation into Africrypt, with the main hurdle to launching a probe being whether or not the regulator can find any actual legal jurisdiction over the biz and its crypto-based offering.

News URL

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2021/06/23/africrypt_bitcoin_disappearance/