South Africa Crypto Exchange Brothers Disappear After Client Cash Vanishes

In April, Africrypt COO Ameer Cajee had said that client accounts had all been compromised due to a recent breach in its system

Lawyers for investors in a cryptocurrency exchange in South Africa, which told clients in April their accounts had been hacked, say $3.6 billion has disappeared from the platform and that the two brothers who ran it cannot be traced. If confirmed, Africrypt's losses would rank among the biggest crypto losses yet. For the whole of 2020, losses in the crypto sector through fraud and other crime were $1.9 billion, down from a record of $4.5 billion in 2019, according to crypto intelligence company CipherTrace. Africrypt COO Ameer Cajee said in a letter to clients, dated April 13, that client accounts had all been compromised due to a recent breach in its system. The letter, reviewed by Reuters, said Africrypt had halted operations and had "begun the process of attempting to retrieve stolen funds." It gave no details of how much money was missing and warned clients that trying to get their money back using lawyers would "only delay the recovery process."