Empty customer accounts and up to US $ 3. 600 millions lost, thousands of clients affected and two teenagers in the spotlight.
Ameer and Raees Cajee, from 18 Y 20 years respectively, they founded the Africrypt cryptocurrency platform, which started operating from South Africa in 2019.
According to a complaint filed in April by a law firm on behalf of a group of investors with the police, hundreds of users stopped having access to their accounts, coinciding with the weeks in which bitcoin reached its all-time high.
The most famous cryptocurrency traded at US $ 63. 226 per unit, the highest price ever.
That month, Africrypt COO Ameer Cajee, the older brother, informed customers that the company had been victim of a cyberattack and announced that the platform had stopped its operations.
“Our system, customer accounts, their portfolios and our nodes are they were compromised, “he wrote in an email.
They deny the theft
In the email advised investors not to follow the “legal route” , since “it would only delay the process of recovering the missing funds.”
After that email the 13 of April, the brothers disappeared for a few days.
Attorney John Oosthuizen, who represents Raees and Ameer Cajee, told the BBC that the brothers who founded Africrypt categorically deny any part
“There is no basis for the accusation, “he said.
Both” argue that was a hacked and that they had been victims of a robbery ”, he added.
However, in the complaint sent to an elite South African police unit, known as the Hawks, the legal services hired by the affected estimate that thousands of bitcoins “ vanished completely” .
This disappearance of around 69. 000 bitcoins , at peak bitcoin prices , it has a value of about US $ 4. 000 million, which would represent the largest loss of dollars in a cryptocurrency scam.
S i following the trail
The investigation commissioned by the law firm of those affected discovered that the platform’s funds were transferred from the accounts and wallets of clients located in South Africa.
But the trace of the coins was lost because in the operation “several nodes and mixers of the dark web ”, wrote the law firm of those affected.
This process essentially makes impossible to track the money .
Furthermore, everything seems to indicate that “Africrypt employees lost access to support platforms to clients seven days before the alleged attack, ”said the legal services firm.
Ponzi Scheme
The South African Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA) said on 24 June in a press release that crypto assets are not regulated in South Africa “and, consequently, the FSCA is not in a position to take any regulatory action.”
And, as is the case in many In other countries, the financial authorities of South Africa do not have jurisdiction over this type of scam, since cryptocurrencies are not legally recognized as financial products.
The communiqué of Press reported that Africrypt “was offering exceptionally high and unrealistic returns similar to those offered by illegal investment schemes commonly known as Ponzi.”
The BBC asked the South African police if an investigation is underway, but at the time of publication of this article they have not answered.
Second big fiasco in South Africa
On the now-down website, Africrypt described himself to itself as “an investment firm focused exclusively on cryptocurrency and blockchain technology.”
The company told investors that, in just a few years, it had grown from a platform managed by a single person working from his bedroom to “one of the largest and most successful artificial intelligence and commerce companies Africa ”.
The medium specialized in finance Bloomberg recalled that the “fiasco” with Africrypt occurs after the collapse last year of another South African platform of bitcoin, Mirror Trading International.
Then they were compromised until 23. 000 digital currencies they supposed, at prices then around US $ 1. 184 million, according to a report by Chainalysis.
Africrypt investors could face three times greater losses.
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