Founders of South African Bitcoin exchange disappear after $3.6 billion 'hack'

[beerlover]

Latest news here:
https://www.news.com.au/finance/money/investing/africrypt-cajee-brother-denies-stealing-475b-in-bitcoin/news-story/ba8fe269dd7bd18cb5336b99d02424cd

The investors of Africrypt are saying that a total of $3.6 billion are missing. But the brothers are claiming that they were managing only around $200 million worth of funds (I need to find out who these "investors" are, who trusted a 21-year old and a 17-year old with so much money). The promoters claim that among their customers there are some very powerful people - politicians, businessmen and celebrities. Some of these customers have apparently made the death threat, according to the Cajee brothers. The brothers claim that they are "planning" to return to South Africa.

Unfortunately people didn't check who the owners are, it has been said before that people do not look at the owners of the exchanges they use, it is a shame but it is also the reality. I do wonder how this will unfold, 200 million dollars is not a small amount of money, hell even 5 million dollars is not a small amount of money but 3.5 billion dollars is a staggering amount of money and I do wonder what is going to happen.

If they were 100% innocent and had absolutely nothing wrong then why did they ran away to UK? That is the correct question to ask, if they had so much money just stolen and everything else is fine and they can come back and make the business continue without a problem then they should have done that to begin with. The only reason they went to UK is basically to hide their money there and that's it, now they can come back and claim that they are hacked just like everyone else and they are victims as well.

[Sithara007]

Unfortunately people didn't check who the owners are, it has been said before that people do not look at the owners of the exchanges they use, it is a shame but it is also the reality. I do wonder how this will unfold, 200 million dollars is not a small amount of money, hell even 5 million dollars is not a small amount of money but 3.5 billion dollars is a staggering amount of money and I do wonder what is going to happen.

If they were 100% innocent and had absolutely nothing wrong then why did they ran away to UK? That is the correct question to ask, if they had so much money just stolen and everything else is fine and they can come back and make the business continue without a problem then they should have done that to begin with. The only reason they went to UK is basically to hide their money there and that's it, now they can come back and claim that they are hacked just like everyone else and they are victims as well.

I don't think that these two will ever return to South Africa. The advantage with UK is that it never deports criminals, if they can prove that their life is in danger if deported. In the past, foreign pedophiles and rapists have managed to overturn their deportations, by arguing that they may face physical harm if sent back. And for the financial criminals, it is even easier. London is being regarded as the hub of white collar criminals. The government in UK doesn't care if your funds are stolen from somewhere. As long as you are rich, and is able to spend that money in the UK, you are welcome there.

[aysg76]

Another bitcoin ponzi scam and victims to this lost $3.6 billion which is insane that how sharp minded these two youngsters must be or say how foolish were the people to invest their funds with their firm.So now what people will not realise their silly mistake and refer to bitcoin as scam but knows internally that it is not true because they were being stupid despite of so many crypto warning scams.Many scammers just fly to other countries which do not ally with their origin country so that they could not be deported from there and they pay legal fees to them.Just another day another scam but some big this time.

Few months back the older brother and CEO of Africrypt told investors they have been hacked and asked customers not to report to the authorities as it will slow down investigation? Seriously and people believe it and then they convert all the funds to btc and just go off the radars and next is news that it is one of the biggest crypto scam in South Africa.I don't know how people came into their influence without any background check that company is being run by two teenagers who are not above 20 also and what is their past history nothing and then became victim for the same.So according to me people are to be blamed because ignorance is not a plea.

[beerlover]

I don't think that these two will ever return to South Africa. The advantage with UK is that it never deports criminals, if they can prove that their life is in danger if deported. In the past, foreign pedophiles and rapists have managed to overturn their deportations, by arguing that they may face physical harm if sent back. And for the financial criminals, it is even easier. London is being regarded as the hub of white collar criminals. The government in UK doesn't care if your funds are stolen from somewhere. As long as you are rich, and is able to spend that money in the UK, you are welcome there.

I doubt that it is about being deported or even physical harm, it is obvious that these people are now rich and UK wants to take a piece of that money. Think about it, wouldn't you want two people with over 3 billion dollars in their pockets to come to your nation, live there, spend there, when they spend their money others in your nation earn money, and they pay taxes as well so basically all around as long as they live there that 3+ billion dollars will slowly go into UK economy.

So I think it is not about white collar crime, it is not about deportation, it is not about keeping someone safe from physical harm, UK doesn't care about any of that, they only care about money that they could make from these two. I still can't believe they managed to steal this much money, it is a shock to me that they were even capable of doing something this large so easily.

[oHnK]

I don't think that these two will ever return to South Africa. The advantage with UK is that it never deports criminals, if they can prove that their life is in danger if deported. In the past, foreign pedophiles and rapists have managed to overturn their deportations, by arguing that they may face physical harm if sent back. And for the financial criminals, it is even easier. London is being regarded as the hub of white collar criminals. The government in UK doesn't care if your funds are stolen from somewhere. As long as you are rich, and is able to spend that money in the UK, you are welcome there.

I doubt that it is about being deported or even physical harm, it is obvious that these people are now rich and UK wants to take a piece of that money. Think about it, wouldn't you want two people with over 3 billion dollars in their pockets to come to your nation, live there, spend there, when they spend their money others in your nation earn money, and they pay taxes as well so basically all around as long as they live there that 3+ billion dollars will slowly go into UK economy.

So I think it is not about white collar crime, it is not about deportation, it is not about keeping someone safe from physical harm, UK doesn't care about any of that, they only care about money that they could make from these two. I still can't believe they managed to steal this much money, it is a shock to me that they were even capable of doing something this large so easily.

It would be too naive to focus on physical protection and deportation issues.  The state only talks about needs, what needs can be met then the state can protect.  The money so big they have will make a good proposal for the protection of a country even though he is a criminal.  This is a fact that is difficult for everyone to admit.  Whether the state really cares about the fate of workers who work as maids is not entirely.  It's a business to business story.

[jaysabi]

I don't think that these two will ever return to South Africa. The advantage with UK is that it never deports criminals, if they can prove that their life is in danger if deported. In the past, foreign pedophiles and rapists have managed to overturn their deportations, by arguing that they may face physical harm if sent back. And for the financial criminals, it is even easier. London is being regarded as the hub of white collar criminals. The government in UK doesn't care if your funds are stolen from somewhere. As long as you are rich, and is able to spend that money in the UK, you are welcome there.

I doubt that it is about being deported or even physical harm, it is obvious that these people are now rich and UK wants to take a piece of that money. Think about it, wouldn't you want two people with over 3 billion dollars in their pockets to come to your nation, live there, spend there, when they spend their money others in your nation earn money, and they pay taxes as well so basically all around as long as they live there that 3+ billion dollars will slowly go into UK economy.

So I think it is not about white collar crime, it is not about deportation, it is not about keeping someone safe from physical harm, UK doesn't care about any of that, they only care about money that they could make from these two. I still can't believe they managed to steal this much money, it is a shock to me that they were even capable of doing something this large so easily.

This remains to be a dumb idea even though you keep posting it.  That's not how any of this works.  If it is, go find all the times the UK has refused to deport someone because the UK wanted to keep the money the criminals stole and brought to the UK and post them here.  You won't find any because that's not how it works.  Even among conspiracy theories, this one is stupid.

[nakamura12]

Even if they return to south africa but the words they say is not that strong. If they got a death threat oine then they should prove that it's true and if it's physical death threat then it would be hard to prove. This feels like an exit scam by saying that the exchange got hacked but it is them who did it (just saying though I don't have any proof but it sure do feels like it)

[Lorence.xD]

Even if they return to south africa but the words they say is not that strong. If they got a death threat oine then they should prove that it's true and if it's physical death threat then it would be hard to prove. This feels like an exit scam by saying that the exchange got hacked but it is them who did it (just saying though I don't have any proof but it sure do feels like it)

It's highly likely that it is an exit scam more than anything else because for all we know, the death threats were a fabricated story so the people that thinks they are scammers will have second thoughts about their accusations. Look at the time of the hack and the time of their disappearance, it all too seem unlikely that it's all just a coincidence.

[Vaskiy]

Bitcoin exchange hacks and exit scams used to make a negative impact over the market. This time there is no big impact experienced, and this is all because of the exchange being unknown to majority of the users. Right now there is no complaints raised against both of them who have scammed the users. Such situations will affect the reputation of the cryptocurrency network.

[Vishnu.Reang]

This remains to be a dumb idea even though you keep posting it.  That's not how any of this works.  If it is, go find all the times the UK has refused to deport someone because the UK wanted to keep the money the criminals stole and brought to the UK and post them here.  You won't find any because that's not how it works.  Even among conspiracy theories, this one is stupid.

UK don't want to keep the money. But they are OK, if the money is spent in that jurisdiction. There is nothing wrong in what beerlover posted, because I know that during the last 3 decades dozens of financial criminals have settled down in the UK. And these scammers have migrated to the UK from all around the world, including African countries, China, India, Greece, Russia.etc. Being an Indian, I would say that the UK's policy of protecting criminals like Vijay Mallya and Nirav Modi (who have stolen billions of $$ worth of funds from the Indian banks) is extremely disappointing.

[Silberman]

Unfortunately people didn't check who the owners are, it has been said before that people do not look at the owners of the exchanges they use, it is a shame but it is also the reality. I do wonder how this will unfold, 200 million dollars is not a small amount of money, hell even 5 million dollars is not a small amount of money but 3.5 billion dollars is a staggering amount of money and I do wonder what is going to happen.

If they were 100% innocent and had absolutely nothing wrong then why did they ran away to UK? That is the correct question to ask, if they had so much money just stolen and everything else is fine and they can come back and make the business continue without a problem then they should have done that to begin with. The only reason they went to UK is basically to hide their money there and that's it, now they can come back and claim that they are hacked just like everyone else and they are victims as well.

I don't think that these two will ever return to South Africa. The advantage with UK is that it never deports criminals, if they can prove that their life is in danger if deported. In the past, foreign pedophiles and rapists have managed to overturn their deportations, by arguing that they may face physical harm if sent back. And for the financial criminals, it is even easier. London is being regarded as the hub of white collar criminals. The government in UK doesn't care if your funds are stolen from somewhere. As long as you are rich, and is able to spend that money in the UK, you are welcome there.

Thanks for the info, it does not seem then that this is going to be resolved soon or that at least those people are going to pay by spending time in jail, however I find this argument to be flawed after all if someone does something as bad as stealing so much money from you then it makes sense to be incredibly mad to the point to make threats, I am not justifying violence against those people as they should face the criminal justice system of their country, but I say that being mad and losing control of what you say makes complete sense and for that to be enough to not deport a criminal makes no sense to me.

[Quidat]

Bitcoin exchange hacks and exit scams used to make a negative impact over the market. This time there is no big impact experienced, and this is all because of the exchange being unknown to majority of the users. Right now there is no complaints raised against both of them who have scammed the users. Such situations will affect the reputation of the cryptocurrency network.

Reputation or simply popularity is one of the factors too that add up on possible effect into the market when it comes to exchange hack incident and you were right that its an unknown exchange
and this incident didnt really make any impact on overall market.It is rather making those movements into Elon tweets which i can say that it is on high probability that the entire market
will really possibly have that kind of possible movement on every tweet and its not something new into this place. On topic about exchange hack, this is why its much
better if you do really focus or trust up those current top rank in the market, dont make deposits into unknown ones and just more reminder that even on reputable ones
you wouldnt know on when they would be hacked so never store coins on exchangers for too long.

[Sithara007]

Thanks for the info, it does not seem then that this is going to be resolved soon or that at least those people are going to pay by spending time in jail, however I find this argument to be flawed after all if someone does something as bad as stealing so much money from you then it makes sense to be incredibly mad to the point to make threats, I am not justifying violence against those people as they should face the criminal justice system of their country, but I say that being mad and losing control of what you say makes complete sense and for that to be enough to not deport a criminal makes no sense to me.

This is the ecosystem the left has created in western nations. Criminals are being given special rights, none of which their victims received. A perfect example is the case of Rwanda genocide. 1 million ethnic minority civilians were killed during this genocide. Ethnic minority women were raped by perpetrators who were HIV positive. The victims caught HIV from their rapists, and soon died. However, the rapists are still alive as they are detained by the International Criminal Court and they are getting free access to expensive medicines. And to give an example of how the legal system in UK works:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8211263/Rapist-deportation-halted-airline-passengers-staged-mutiny-set-released.html
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/deportation-rapist-halted-appeal-judges-1945890.html
https://metro.co.uk/2019/04/07/gang-rape-victims-trauma-after-heathrow-passengers-stop-attackers-deportation-9128061/

Now after this, do you really expect that the Cajee brothers will be brought to justice within the UK?

[jaysabi]

This remains to be a dumb idea even though you keep posting it.  That's not how any of this works.  If it is, go find all the times the UK has refused to deport someone because the UK wanted to keep the money the criminals stole and brought to the UK and post them here.  You won't find any because that's not how it works.  Even among conspiracy theories, this one is stupid.

UK don't want to keep the money. But they are OK, if the money is spent in that jurisdiction. There is nothing wrong in what beerlover posted, because I know that during the last 3 decades dozens of financial criminals have settled down in the UK. And these scammers have migrated to the UK from all around the world, including African countries, China, India, Greece, Russia.etc. Being an Indian, I would say that the UK's policy of protecting criminals like Vijay Mallya and Nirav Modi (who have stolen billions of $$ worth of funds from the Indian banks) is extremely disappointing.

Well pretty much everything you said was inaccurate.  Modi is currently in the process of being extradited to India, in fact his latest appeal was just rejected by a UK court several days ago.  So not only is the UK not a "safe haven" for criminals, but the specific example you cited proves to be working exactly the opposite of how you keep saying it does.

[bryant.coleman]

Well pretty much everything you said was inaccurate.  Modi is currently in the process of being extradited to India, in fact his latest appeal was just rejected by a UK court several days ago.  So not only is the UK not a "safe haven" for criminals, but the specific example you cited proves to be working exactly the opposite of how you keep saying it does.

If his appeal against extradition is rejected, he can apply for asylum in the UK claiming that the jails in India are not safe for him. This is the same route that was used by Vijay Mallya. The asylum hearing can go on for many years, and even if it is rejected, these guys can go for appeals multiple times. I don't think that Nirav Modi will be deported back to India for the next 10-15 years. These are not isolated incidents. Dozens of Russian oligarchs who made tens of billions of USD during the Yeltsin era are residing in the United Kingdom. The UK has refused to extradite any of them back to Russia, for obvious reasons. The same is the case with Greek oligarchs, who looted the treasuries and caused the Greek economic meltdown of 2017.

[goldade]

There are several possible explanations to this situation.
It could be possible that the brothers were themselves victim of some scam and the only available option is to abscond to avoid paying the debt of $3.6 billion. It is a huge sum of money and absconding might seem as the best alternative.
It could also be possible that the two brothers are the scammers who used an exchange to scam people of their hard earned money and after successfully carrying out their scam ran away.
Anyways, I do hope the funds are recovered because this means a lot of people would lose money and it is possible for some to have lost their life savings.

[justdimin]

An exist scam if you can get away with 3.6 bn USD sounds like a good risk / reward bet to be in. With such kind of money you can just buy a huge yacht and sail into international waters for the rest of your life. What remains curious to me is that an unknown exchange handled such kind of money. I feel bad for all the investors who los their coins, but how can you put such large sums of money in an exchange without a long track record. I agree that is best to withdraw coins instantly from the exchange, leave only the coins on there that you are planning to sell in the next few days. The security risk is just too big.

Well, it depends if you can get all of it as well. These guys weren't keeping the 3.5 billion dollars in their pockets when they left, everyone is talking about how the scam was for that amount but just because they scammed that much doesn't mean they got away with that much.

These are technological stuff and I would be shocked to hear if they had even over 100 million dollars to their name when they run away, when you want to scam people it is not really as simple as take their money and leave, there are a lot of cold wallets, there is hot wallet, there are wallets for each coin, there are hot wallets for each of them, there are colds for each of them, there are operational ones where people in your staff has access, and as soon as you touch one of the cold wallets you are going to end up with a red flag and someone in your staff may leak that information. So, it is quite quite difficult to steal ALL of it.

[tippytoes]

There are several possible explanations to this situation.
It could be possible that the brothers were themselves victim of some scam and the only available option is to abscond to avoid paying the debt of $3.6 billion. It is a huge sum of money and absconding might seem as the best alternative.
It could also be possible that the two brothers are the scammers who used an exchange to scam people of their hard earned money and after successfully carrying out their scam ran away.
Anyways, I do hope the funds are recovered because this means a lot of people would lose money and it is possible for some to have lost their life savings.

It is not an exchange platform but an investment platform. So more than likely, they are running ponzi scheme here up until they can no longer pay their investors. Definitely, before they disappear, they already worked out plans on how to liquidate those large sum of money. They may have gone already to a third world country and enjoying a Piña colada. But unfortunate for those who trusted them with their hard-earned money/life savings.


article

[ene1980]

~
Well, it depends if you can get all of it as well. These guys weren't keeping the 3.5 billion dollars in their pockets when they left, everyone is talking about how the scam was for that amount but just because they scammed that much doesn't mean they got away with that much.

All we can do is speculate how much they own, since they are having the full custody of the wallet the can very well own all the coins that are deposited in their business, you need to understand that it was not an exchange but a scam from the beginning.

These are technological stuff and I would be shocked to hear if they had even over 100 million dollars to their name when they run away, when you want to scam people it is not really as simple as take their money and leave, there are a lot of cold wallets, there is hot wallet, there are wallets for each coin, there are hot wallets for each of them, there are colds for each of them, there are operational ones where people in your staff has access, and as soon as you touch one of the cold wallets you are going to end up with a red flag and someone in your staff may leak that information. So, it is quite quite difficult to steal ALL of it.

It is strange that you do not think that they owners is not holding the private keys of their hot wallet and cold wallet. Even if they have a reserve holdings for emergency the entire hot wallet private keys will be in the hands of the owners and not to their employees.

[Dread Pirate Roberts]

These Cajee brothers were just 20 and 17 year old kids. While they may have struck the proverbial goldmine with the exchange, it could wholly be possible that they themselves are a victim of the 5-dollar wrench attack.

The excuse for not investigating is also pretty weak. It has already been a few days and will be impossible to track if something untoward has happened to them. Watch for those proceeds ending up in some politician or powerful policeman's Swiss bank stash.

Never knew this before. risks that cannot be avoided and feared by all crypto traders. loss money because other people certainly unacceptable. and with a nominal of that size, I assume they are already big in their country? honestly i never heard that exchange name before. hope african friend there will get the best solution for their assets.

are they not even clarification or make press conference for that case ?