Despite the massive theft of funds in bitcoins, the South African authorities cannot solve the issue because the cryptocurrency is decentralized and there is no institution that controls it.
A new case of Bitcoin fraud has been known in recent days. On this occasion, the person in question is a company founded by two brothers in South Africa and named after Africrypt.
According to Clarín, the two brothers identified as Emir and Rais Kaji, who founded the cryptocurrency company in 2019 and fueled mistrust among their investment community for two months, when Africept went offline, are responsible for the scam, according to Clarín.
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At that time, when its users started complaining and suspicions were raised, the brothers called for calm and asserted that the reason behind it all was that the company was the victim of a hack.
Days after the alleged hack, the brothers disappeared with $3.6 billion that users of the Cape Town-based company had invested in bitcoin.
Prior to their disappearance, a prince and the chief of their investors had requested that legal action not be taken, while they pledged to resolve the situation.
The Cajee brothers’ scam could be the biggest in Bitcoin’s short history. Illustrative, non-commercial image / https://twitter.com/AfricaStoryLive/status/1408117635481485318/photo/1
According to media outlets specializing in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, the scam committed by the brothers could be the biggest in the short history of virtual money.
When the brothers stopped responding to letters, several investors decided to hire companies like Hanekom Attorneys to investigate what was happening.
Researchers have found what investors fear most: their bitcoins no longer exist.
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According to the information collected, billions of dollars were extracted from investors from their digital wallets, fragmented through “mixers” on the “dark web” and, from there, deposited in hundreds of bank accounts always in South Africa, so it became impossible to trace the funds.
The gravity of the situation, according to the researchers, lies in the fact that it is a decentralized cryptocurrency and without links with intermediaries such as banks or government institutions, resolving the issue is almost impossible, since the financial authorities of the African country simply do not have jurisdiction over the case.
One piece of evidence Hanekom’s lawyers found is that the brothers may have fled to England, however, their location remains a mystery.
