South African asset managers vanish with $4.9 billion of Bitcoin

The co-founder of South African crypto platform AfriCrypt, Raees Cajee, denied that he ran off with his brother taking billions of investor funds. They said that the platform lost around $5 million after a hack.

Cointelegraph reported last week that AfriCrypt was accused of taking investor funds of 69,000 BTC and disappearing mysteriously.

Both the Cajee brothers are confounding desperate investors and their families alike.

Raees and Ameer Cajee operated Johannesburg-based Africrypt since 2019, now appear to have vanished with an estimated US$3.7 billion (S$4.9 billion) in Bitcoin. Before their disappearance, they told investors that the platform had been hacked.
Fortune magazine commented on this event, saying that this would the most considerable cryptocurrency loss if they can not recover the money.

Who is facing problems now?

Zakira Laher, their cousin, said she was the last person who had contact in April with the brothers, and after that, no one knows their whereabouts.

Ms. Laher worked for the brothers but resigned in 2019.

She was doing some administrative work and providing legal advice. She said they liked luxury cars and traveling.

In April, the brothers stopped operations while sending messages to investors that Africrypt experienced a hack and funds were missing.

While Laher worked for Africrypt, she received petrol money. She stated that they they took her to lunch a couple of times. Now people ask Laher for their money, and she is terrified that she doesn’t know what to tell them.

A lawyer who was assisting some of the clients said that the missing Bitcoin totaled more than US$3.9 billion. Another company working on bankruptcy proceedings said they were aware of around 63 clients with about 141 million rands (S$13.4 million) at risk while there is a possibility of increasing this number.