Two brothers have disappeared with $3.6 billion worth of Bitcoin

[Philipruch]

It's really a bad news to those who are victims of this tragedy and also a serious warming and experience to those who are curious to invest into crypto currency market to take mindful precautions so as to be safe in pursuing financial freedom

[Rikafip]

How is it a Ponzi though? I mean Ponzi gets it's money from a continuous influx of investor? They're an exchange so I don't get how they are a Ponzi. I might be wrong though which means that if it is a Ponzi then probably they did a good job disguising it to look like a real one for that many investors to pour their money in the exchange. I don't think that they will be tracked, pretty sure that this exit scam is premeditated and they know how to not get tracked already.

Africrypt wasn't exchange, as wrongly presented in majority of media, but investing platform that promised 10 % daily ROI on the investment, and they claimed that they were able to bring that kind of profit thanks to "AI driven trading platform", which is just a standard bullshit to hide that there is no trading going on, but instead it's just an ordinary ponzi that can live as long as there is constant influx of new investors.

Those two brothers naturally didn't want to wait for that, so they just did exit scam and disappeared with the bitcoin they had at that moment.

[7788bitcoin]

Africrypt wasn't exchange, as wrongly presented in majority of media, but investing platform that promised 10 % daily ROI on the investment, and they claimed that they were able to bring that kind of profit thanks to "AI driven trading platform", which is just a standard bullshit to hide that there is no trading going on, but instead it's just an ordinary ponzi that can live as long as there is constant influx of new investors.

Those two brothers naturally didn't want to wait for that, so they just did exit scam and disappeared with the bitcoin they had at that moment.

So the news were fake that were claiming that the exchange was hacked and the owners ran with the money, this is the problem we are facing, people are not even telling the facts and there is a major difference between an exchange and a ponzi scam and i cannot understand why majority of the media are writing this as a major exchange hack while it is a exit scam from the beginning.

[verita1]

69,000 bitcoins is a huge scam that will remain in the minds of these South African investors.
The creators of the project are very young and it occurred to investors to invest in a coin with little support.
It is a sadness for affected investors, I hope it is clear that
that the scammers were these guys because bitcoin has misconceptions about scam.
If there is a thorough investigation, they could arrest the guilty and make them pay for their crime.

[Fatunad]

That's what happen when you invest in a centralized shitcoin. My condolence to the people who lost everything in this scam.

PS: Just checked on CMC. This Africrypt does not even exist there.

And people would just realized when its too late.They do never learn and make out some research first before doing something or simply when making investment and this had been a typical scenario on this market and there are lots of projects out there do really end up on being a scam where they do make out alibis that they had been hacked or something about being compromised and due to characteristic and feature of crypto then they are really taking advantage of it and when they had done it on a country where crypto isnt regulated or something then that would be surely making things even more
harder to be traced up.This isnt something new and condolence into those people who had invested and hoping for nothing.

[Republikcoin.com]

It's really a bad news to those who are victims of this tragedy and also a serious warming and experience to those who are curious to invest into crypto currency market to take mindful precautions so as to be safe in pursuing financial freedom

This cannot yet be a valid decision declaring the victim. We all only know information from this article, while there is no other information that makes it strong that they are victims.
We all know conspiracies and falsification of facts through some drama stories, being skeptical of an issue is necessary.
And to declare a victim, we must know the root of the problem until it is clean, including the parties involved.

[Twinkledoe]

Africrypt wasn't exchange, as wrongly presented in majority of media, but investing platform that promised 10 % daily ROI on the investment, and they claimed that they were able to bring that kind of profit thanks to "AI driven trading platform", which is just a standard bullshit to hide that there is no trading going on, but instead it's just an ordinary ponzi that can live as long as there is constant influx of new investors.

Those two brothers naturally didn't want to wait for that, so they just did exit scam and disappeared with the bitcoin they had at that moment.

So the news were fake that were claiming that the exchange was hacked and the owners ran with the money, this is the problem we are facing, people are not even telling the facts and there is a major difference between an exchange and a ponzi scam and i cannot understand why majority of the media are writing this as a major exchange hack while it is a exit scam from the beginning.

This is why media most of the time mislead people from the real truth. They jump on the news without doing their research first. If this exit strategy is a well-planned one, would be hard to track these 2 brothers. Maybe they are already living their life in one of the tropical islands. If no one will seriously sue this company, they can get away from this multi-billion ponzi scheme.

[romecheo]

Very clever scammer, they were using cryptocurrencies to attract investor with little or no knowledge about cryptocurrencies,

because of their sweet mouth, then can convince many to put their trust in them.

I felt very sorry for those they called them self as a victim,

others believe that there someone who can be trusted, and willing to help them to earn some living, some people, make advantage to others, and  is how this really works.

[Sayeds56]

That's what happen when you invest in a centralized shitcoin. My condolence to the people who lost everything in this scam.

PS: Just checked on CMC. This Africrypt does not even exist there.

This kind of scams kill image of Crypto currencies and ordinary people refrain from investing in it. Mass adaption of crypto will never see light of the day if Scammers continue to loot hard earned money of innocent people that is why it has to be brought under the umbrella  of Regulatory authorities in every country.

https://cryptostaunch.com/cryptocurrency-scams.html

[Obito]

~snip

Africrypt wasn't exchange, as wrongly presented in majority of media, but investing platform that promised 10 % daily ROI on the investment, and they claimed that they were able to bring that kind of profit thanks to "AI driven trading platform", which is just a standard bullshit to hide that there is no trading going on, but instead it's just an ordinary ponzi that can live as long as there is constant influx of new investors.

Those two brothers naturally didn't want to wait for that, so they just did exit scam and disappeared with the bitcoin they had at that moment.

Thanks for the clarification, I didn't expect a Ponzi scheme being successful and have a lot of investors because I am pretty sure that you can practically smell that it is a scam because of the promised ROI, that's impossible wven for a legitimate investment.

[Darker45]

This is one short exit-scam story in a thick book full of crypto exit-scams. There are different kinds of crypto exit-scam projects. I remembered during the height of ICO, there were countless of projects that ended up scams after raising millions and millions of money from investors.

The fact that this project was backed by a bank doesn't say anything about its legitimacy. Banks are usually there for the money.

[Kong Hey Pakboy]

This is one short exit-scam story in a thick book full of crypto exit-scams. There are different kinds of crypto exit-scam projects. I remembered during the height of ICO, there were countless of projects that ended up scams after raising millions and millions of money from investors.

The fact that this project was backed by a bank doesn't say anything about its legitimacy. Banks are usually there for the money.

Didn't the bank got scammed too or they benefited from the exit scam too like the brothers who allegedly disappeared. I wasn't that familiar with ICO but I do remember some of them but I can't put a pin what is their name, they were pretty promising and the people behind the projects were pretty interactive to their community that a lot of investors didn't expect that their money will be swindled.

[virasog]

That's what happen when you invest in a centralized shitcoin. My condolence to the people who lost everything in this scam.

PS: Just checked on CMC. This Africrypt does not even exist there.

Shouldn't we blame people on this who invest in scam coins and low volume exchanges and later cry when they exit scam.
Why the scammers are again n again able to scam people with different exchanges n coins, because its we people who always fell in their trap. If we stop investing in such coins and exchanges, these scammers will disappear automatically.

[Darker45]

This is one short exit-scam story in a thick book full of crypto exit-scams. There are different kinds of crypto exit-scam projects. I remembered during the height of ICO, there were countless of projects that ended up scams after raising millions and millions of money from investors.

The fact that this project was backed by a bank doesn't say anything about its legitimacy. Banks are usually there for the money.

Didn't the bank got scammed too or they benefited from the exit scam too like the brothers who allegedly disappeared. I wasn't that familiar with ICO but I do remember some of them but I can't put a pin what is their name, they were pretty promising and the people behind the projects were pretty interactive to their community that a lot of investors didn't expect that their money will be swindled.

I highly doubt the bank is a victim here. FNB funded Africrypt but it should have been given as a loan, which should have already been paid as the project has made a lot of money. I don't think FNB, which is one of South Africa's top banks, would easily fall to this scam. If it were a loan, Africrypt must have left a collateral whose value exceeded that of the loan provided. It is hard to imagine a huge bank privately funding what used to be a start-up crypto project ran by two youngsters in their twenties.

And also, Africrypt has accounts in the bank. The bank could easily seize what remains there to pay for its outstanding loan if it still has any.

[bittraffic]

This is one short exit-scam story in a thick book full of crypto exit-scams. There are different kinds of crypto exit-scam projects. I remembered during the height of ICO, there were countless of projects that ended up scams after raising millions and millions of money from investors.

The fact that this project was backed by a bank doesn't say anything about its legitimacy. Banks are usually there for the money.

Didn't the bank got scammed too or they benefited from the exit scam too like the brothers who allegedly disappeared. I wasn't that familiar with ICO but I do remember some of them but I can't put a pin what is their name, they were pretty promising and the people behind the projects were pretty interactive to their community that a lot of investors didn't expect that their money will be swindled.

I highly doubt the bank is a victim here. FNB funded Africrypt but it should have been given as a loan, which should have already been paid as the project has made a lot of money. I don't think FNB, which is one of South Africa's top banks, would easily fall to this scam. If it were a loan, Africrypt must have left a collateral whose value exceeded that of the loan provided. It is hard to imagine a huge bank privately funding what used to be a start-up crypto project ran by two youngsters in their twenties.

And also, Africrypt has accounts in the bank. The bank could easily seize what remains there to pay for its outstanding loan if it still has any.

But then what Africrypt has is Bitcoin, which's not easy to seize. The bank must be part of this scam.
The disappearance reminds me of the story of the two influencers of Bitconnect that end up dead in a deserted place in Mexico.  $3.6B of Bitcoin could turn an innocent mind into a deal criminal, they both could be dead buried in a shallow grave.

[NotATether]

As things look now, they planned this very well and I have no doubt that they had an exit scam in the beginning - and then they had just enough time to cover up all traces and disappear with new identities, maybe even with new faces - because with 69 000 BTC is not hard to buy a whole new life anywhere in the world.

Nah, because if you think about it, these two brothers don't look like they're well-connected - it would be incredibly difficult to cash out that much BTC since that particular UTXO would've been blocked by most exchanges, and all exchanges have stringent KYC requirements anyway so without somebody's identity to use...  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ even with a stolen passport bought from the darknet, the BTC is still on the exchange but you have nowhere to withdraw it to without having anyone's bank.

Most things cannot be bought without a credit card or bank account anyway so it's just a pile of 69,000BTC sitting there that they can't do much with (except maybe, launder it by mining with bought ASICs?) without anybody to help them.

[Kong Hey Pakboy]

Didn't the bank got scammed too or they benefited from the exit scam too like the brothers who allegedly disappeared. I wasn't that familiar with ICO but I do remember some of them but I can't put a pin what is their name, they were pretty promising and the people behind the projects were pretty interactive to their community that a lot of investors didn't expect that their money will be swindled.

I highly doubt the bank is a victim here. FNB funded Africrypt but it should have been given as a loan, which should have already been paid as the project has made a lot of money. I don't think FNB, which is one of South Africa's top banks, would easily fall to this scam. If it were a loan, Africrypt must have left a collateral whose value exceeded that of the loan provided. It is hard to imagine a huge bank privately funding what used to be a start-up crypto project ran by two youngsters in their twenties.

And also, Africrypt has accounts in the bank. The bank could easily seize what remains there to pay for its outstanding loan if it still has any.

You're right but that adds another layer of suspicion because that means that this is a really big conspiracy between Africrypt and FNB because you are right, they wouldn't fall for this easily unless they have something to get out of the scheme. *Wears tinfoil hat.

[Tumanggor]

~

It looks like this scam exchange topic has been discussed in another section
As a reminder, exchanges are complex and require a high level of management to operate properly

these two brothers are still under 21 years old, which means their minds are immature and are still childish
being able to run away with that much money is the stupidity of investors, why would they put money on a child

[Kittygalore]

This is why you only invest in Bitcoin for security because get quick rich schemes from shitcoins will destroy you financially.

Well, that's not entirely true, there were other projects that really made a lot of people rich although I can't point a lot because they got drowned by scams but there are some that's legitimate, that's for sure. Maybe a little research could've saved them from the potential scams.

[SoeNan89]

If you have greed, that's the end result.  Losing money for those who have a greedy nature is a form of punishment for them.  Many people fall into such scams because they think they will be rich in just a few years, but they forget that they will be poor if the fraudsters walk away with their money.  Therefore, be careful when doing business in the world of coins.