South Africa Heist

The company is claiming it is a result of a hack, but many are pointing out that this might have been an exit skem.

The two brothers, Ameer and Raees Cajee started up the investment platform, AfriCrypt, back in 2019. Africrypt described itself as “an investment firm exclusively focused on cryptocurrency and blockchain technology.”

Back on April 13, AfriCrypt reported being a victim of a hack, saying, “Our system, client accounts, client wallets, and nodes were all compromised.” They told investors not to pursue legal action as that would delay the recovery process. This comment raised flags among investors and led them to hire a law firm to look into the case.

The law firm has since found the coins were transferred from their clients’ wallets “to various dark web tumblers and mixers, resulting in severe fragmentation” to make the funds virtually untraceable.

Recently the Cajee brothers have been unable to be contacted, but lawyers representing them have recently denied any involvement in the loss of Bitcoin. 

South Africa’s police force focusing on corruption and economic crime, the Hawks, have been investigating the situation. An interesting note about this heist is that South Africa’s Financial Sector Conduct Authority says they cannot act on this case. This is because “crypto assets are not regulated in terms of any financial sector law in South Africa, and consequently the FSCA is not in a position to take any regulatory action.”

It will be interesting to see what happens as more of this story unfolds. This might lead to greater regulation of crypto assets in South Africa. Also, we’ll be on the lookout for the brothers and the stolen Bitcoin. 

On another Bitcoin note, El Salvador has announced that every adult will receive $30 in Bitcoin. They will receive it after downloading and registering on the government’s cryptocurrency app. This comes after El Salvador made Bitcoin an official currency.