Africrypt founders and brothers Ameer and Raees Cajee have gone missing along with $3.6 billion worth of Bitcoin from the cryptocurrency investment platform.
- Africrypt investors hired Cape Town law firm Hanekom Attorneys, which has yet to locate the brothers. It enlisted the help of elite police force unit the Hawks, and warned crypto exchanges not to convert the Bitcoin.
- Chief Operating Officer Ameer in April told clients that the firm fell victim to a hack, but not to report to authorities as this would slow down recovery, but Hanekom Attorneys said employees already lost access to back-end platforms a week before this.
- Hanekom Attorneys found that funds were transferred to other pools of Bitcoin to make them untraceable. Calls to the brothers went straight to voicemail, and the company website has been taken down.
- The Finance Sector Conduct Authority is looking into the incident, but is prohibited from launching a formal probe as crypto assets are not considered financial products.
Crypto-asset trading in Africa hit 2 billion rand or $141 million for the first time in South Africa in January.
BTC/USD is down 0.13%.
Source: Bloomberg
