Founders of South African Bitcoin exchange disappear after $3.6 billion 'hack'?

[Believer]

Cryptocurrency investors in South Africa may have lost nearly $3.6 billion in Bitcoin following the disappearance of two brothers associated with one of the country’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges. According to Bloomberg, a law firm in Cape Town says it can’t locate Ameer and Raees Cajee, the founders of Africrypt. In April, the exchange told its investors it was the victim of a hack and asked them not to report the incident to the authorities on account it would “slow down” the process of recovering their missing money.

Some of those involved in the exchange hired Hanekom Attorneys, the law firm that said it couldn’t find the two brothers, to investigate the incident. It found that someone had withdrawn Africrypt’s pooled funds from the local accounts and client wallets where the coins were stored originally and put them through tumblers and mixers, making it difficult (though not impossible) to trace the money. “Africrypt employees lost access to the back-end platforms seven days before the alleged hack,” the law firm told Bloomberg. The outlet attempted to call both Cajee brothers multiple times only to get their voicemail each time.

Complicating any recovery attempt is that South Africa’s Finance Sector Conduct Authority can’t launch a formal investigation into the incident because cryptocurrency isn’t legally considered a financial product in the country. If no one can recover the money, it will go down as the largest cryptocurrency loss in history, easily overshadowing the approximately $200 million CAD that disappeared when the founder of Canada’s QuadrigaCX exchange died while travelling in India. source link

[TomPluz]

This is the problem in an industry that is largely unregulated...the evil head will really come int play because perpetrators are thinking that they can get away from their responsibilities and that the arms of the law can be deficient to reach them. This is so unacceptable. These two brothers must be brought to the full force of the law - am sure they can find other laws that they have broken by doing the exit scam. A news like this is not doing good for the crypto industry.

[Anonylz]

This is why some people will still tell.you that they cannot invest in cryptocurrencies because it is still a free space and once things like this happens, nobody is holding the other to account. This two brothers in question couldn't be that difficult to find if they really wanted to because I believe that are popular figures in the society and as you said, this type of news is bad for the crypto community.

[mlawson71]

This is why regulation is better than banning crypto. If you ban crypto, it doesn't disappear. Crypto scams continue to happen, but the victims have no one to turn to for help.

[Astra]

This is why regulation is better than banning crypto. If you ban crypto, it doesn't disappear. Crypto scams continue to happen, but the victims have no one to turn to for help.

In addition, many people say that investing in cryptocurrency is easy, simple, reliable and safe. This is far from being in line with such claims. In cryptocurrency, it is very easy and quick to lose your money, if only because of the numerous mistakes that lie in wait for an inept and skillful user at every step.
Cryptocurrency attracts various fraudsters due to its relative anonymity, the possibility of being in any country where there is an Internet, to work with it, the difficulty of work in connection with this law enforcement agencies and for other reasons. Therefore, there will always be fraud in cryptocurrency.

[mlawson71]

I think the only ones who say investing in cryptos is safe and reliable are the scammers, and unfortunately, they rely on inexperienced newbies to fall for that lie.

[Freemind]

A few hours ago I read a news in which they said that the Cajee brothers had returned, the curious thing is that they have said that they do not know where the funds that were in the exchange are, that they do not have them. After disappearing for several days they say they don't know anything about what happened, this is clearly an exit scam, but I don't know if justice can do something in this case.

[marcsymons]

I'm beginning to worry about our local exchanges here in my country. Hopefully, it will not happen here as I believed that the founders are involved in stealing money from their clients, and $3.6B is a huge amount. I plan to buy a Nano ledger hardware wallet as soon as possible as I believe that this is the safest way to keep my Bitcoin and other crypto assets.

[Freemind]

I'm beginning to worry about our local exchanges here in my country. Hopefully, it will not happen here as I believed that the founders are involved in stealing money from their clients, and $3.6B is a huge amount. I plan to buy a Nano ledger hardware wallet as soon as possible as I believe that this is the safest way to keep my Bitcoin and other crypto assets.

Using a Ledger Nano to store your crypto is a good idea, but there are many more options. Some of those options are very expensive, others very cheap, and others cost practically nothing, at the end of the day the really important thing is not to leave our cryptocurrencies in any exchange, because we already know what can happen, as in this case, exchanges can be quite safe, but they can also be stolen by the owners of the exchange. Not your keys, not your coins.

[CryptoStar19]

I'm beginning to worry about our local exchanges here in my country. Hopefully, it will not happen here as I believed that the founders are involved in stealing money from their clients, and $3.6B is a huge amount. I plan to buy a Nano ledger hardware wallet as soon as possible as I believe that this is the safest way to keep my Bitcoin and other crypto assets.

Using a Ledger Nano to store your crypto is a good idea, but there are many more options. Some of those options are very expensive, others very cheap, and others cost practically nothing, at the end of the day the really important thing is not to leave our cryptocurrencies in any exchange, because we already know what can happen, as in this case, exchanges can be quite safe, but they can also be stolen by the owners of the exchange. Not your keys, not your coins.

Sound advice. Keep coin in the exchange only when trading and never for long-term storage.

[zilzylian]

Very sad to hear this information, hope there is an investigation team that can resolve the issue as soon as possible and can provide good news for the users of the exchange.
My colleague also experienced the same thing in 2018 when the Bitpaction exchange suddenly became inaccessible and until now there has been no news of the case.
there is a lot of experience we need to take from this situation, which is to always trade on the top exchanges and have a high trading volume and a good reputation.

[I-Bit]

This case already happened many times, that's why we should be more careful to keep our Bitcoin. We have to move our Bitcoin to hard wallets once we don't have activity for trading the Bitcoin and staking it on an exchange. We also need to be more selective to choose proper exchanges for trading it, so it will be safer for our Bitcoin to move there.

[CryptoStar19]

Time and time again stories like this remind us "not your keys, not your coins".

[mlawson71]

I doubt anyone would be able to find them now. Not with the kind of money they made off with.

[Freemind]

There have been many cases like this, but I always remember the case of Mt.Gox in 2014, where 850,000 Bitcoins "disappeared" (yes, you read that correctly) and supposedly no one knew where they had gone. The way of acting is always the same, large amounts of money "disappear" without anyone knowing anything... After 7 years, there are still many questions about the Mt.Gox case, unanswered questions.