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According to Bloomberg reports, South African investment company AfriCrypt have defrauded its investors by $3.6 billion in Bitcoin. The accused two brothers who are the founder of the investment platform have now allegedly fled away from the company.
The South African police force, Hawks was alerted as soon as a Cape Town law firm Hanekom Attorneys, hired by the investors informed that they were unable to track down the two accused brothers. The law firm informed other cryptocurrency exchanges across the world about the brother, in case they try to convert the digital coins into cash.
The investment company, AfriCrypt was launched in the year 2019 by its Chief Operating Officer Ameer Cajee and his brother Raees. As per reports the company provided exceptional returns for the investors. The website of the company has been taken down and the publication failed to communicate with the brothers through calls.
As far as the reports are concerned, the sign of troubles were evident from the month of April when the elder brother Cajee expressed that the company had become a victim of hacking. However, they requested their client not to report these incidents to the authorities notifying that it would slow down the process of recovery of the missing funds.
In a response to the publication emailed question, Hanekom Attorneys stated, “We were immediately suspicious as the announcement implored the investors not to take legal actions.” It further revealed that the AfriCrypt employees lost their access to the back-end platforms seven days prior to the alleged hack. Furthermore, it asserted that the coins from the client’s wallets and funds from South Africa were passed through tumblers and mixers or to the other large pools of bitcoin most probably with an intention to make then untraceable.
Kenyan news site BitcoinKE reported that the Gauteng South High Court in South Africa permitted a provisional liquidation order against the two brothers and gave them the opportunity to argue against the liquidation until 19th July 2021.