According to a report by Bloomberg, two brothers from South Africa are suspects in an alleged Bitcoin heist that is said to be the biggest cryptocurrency scam in history.
Ameer and Raees Cajee allegedly used their own crypto investment service, Africrypt, to make off with $3.6 billion worth in Bitcoin. Reports say Ameer reached out to investors back in April, alerting them of an apparent breach. However, Ameer implored investors against reporting the hack as it would hamper efforts to recover from the hacking.
The first sign of trouble came back in April, as Bitcoin was skyrocketing across the world and while this was happening, Africrypt COO Ameer Cajee, the elder brother, informed clients that the company was the victim of a hack and asked them to not go to the authorities or report the incident to their lawyers.
The investors who outside of Ammer’s pleas to not worry, the group brought in the Hanekom Attorneys and started the proceedings of liquidating against Africrypt.
“We were immediately suspicious as the announcement implored investors not to take legal action,” the law firm said in a statement. “Africrypt employees lost access to the back-end platforms seven days before the alleged hack.”
The firm concluded from its investigation that “Africrypt’s pooled funds were transferred from its South African accounts and client wallets, and pooled with other bitcoin transactions in order to make them untraceable.”
Despite this, the attorneys cant bring a case together because crypto is not a federally recognized currency. This isn’t the first scam but this one definitely calls to issue the fact the bitcoin, dogecoin, and others are not federally recognized.
South Africa says they will phase in regulation sometime soon.
Flip the page for how the did the scam.