Is Crypto-Heist on the Increase?

June 25, 2021June 25, 2021 by Babry Gernah

The misappropriation of 69,000.00 digital coins, worth $3.6 billion dollars, would now become the biggest loss in cryptocurrency, involving two brothers who ran Africrypt, a cryptocurrency investment platform in Johannesburg south Africa.

Before the brothers, Ameer Cajee the Chief Operating Officers (COO), and Raees Cajee, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the outfit, absconded with their investors’ money, Africrypt represented one of the largest black owned crypto platforms.

Africrypt provided all-around solutions, including investment opportunities on cryptocurrency and block chain technology brokerage services, proffering an electronic off-exchange digital liquidity solution; payment services providing secured digital payments across the domestic offshore and international market admits other services.

Things took a downward turn in April, as bitcoin was rocketing to new record.

Africrypt’s Chief Operating Officer Ameer Cajee, the elder of the brothers informed investors that the company was the victim of a mega hack. He asked the investors not to report the incident to lawyers and authorities, as it would slow down the recovery process of the missing funds. But the cat was let out of the bag when some skeptical investors involved in the law firm, Hanekom Attorneys, and a separate group started liquidation process against Africrypt.

The firm’s investigation revealed that Africrypt’s pooled funds were transferred from its South African accounts and client’s wallets, and the coins went through tumblers and mixers or to other large pools of bitcoin, to make them essentially untraceable.

All attempt to locate the brothers have proved abortive.

This heist has hit the news ahead of last year’s collapse of another South African Bitcoin trader, Mirror Trading International. The losses there, involved about 23,000 digital coins totaled about $1.2 billion in what was called the biggest crypto scam of 2020.

Koshiek Karan, founder of Banker X, spoke bluntly about this on Twitter. “Africrypt claimed to have grown from a one-man operation to ‘one of Africa’s largest and most successful AI trading companies’. Ever heard of them? Nobody has. That’s the start of any great scam.” His thread on the story is entertaining, but it contains one great lesson:

“Whether it’s forex, crypto, stocks, commodities … if anyone ever tells you they [have] figured out a magic pattern to consistently beat the market based on secret technology … Just remember — they’re making money from you, and not for you.”

In other words, if there is no product, then you are the product!