The young founders of a South African crypto investment firm have vanished, along with A$3 billion worth of Bitcoin, according to international and local media reports.

Twenty-year-old Ameer Cajee and 17-year-old Ameer Cajee vanished in April after telling AfriCrypt investors they had suffered a hack.

“Clients were asked not to alert authorities as this would frustrate the recovery of assets from the hackers,” South African media reported.

Sceptical investors hired a law firm, which found Africypt moved the 69,000 Bitcoins from its client wallets to crypto tumblers, where large amounts of Bitcoin is mixed to make them untraceable.

“We were immediately suspicious as the announcement implored investors not to take legal action,” Hanekom Attorneys told Bloomberg News. “Africrypt employees lost access to the back-end platforms seven days before the alleged hack.”

Darren Hanekom of Hnekom Attorneys told Moneyweb that it was unlikely all the funds came from South Africans, saying it was more likely an international money laundering operation.

But locals were known to have invested around R1.5 million (A$140,000), with a few putting in as much as R15 million and R20 million. ($A1.4 million to $1.9 million).

The platform promised outrageous returns of 10 per cent a day via algorithmic trading.

“Not even Bitconnect had balls big enough to make such an absurd lie, but sadly a lot of people got sucked in by this obvious fraud,” posted Kiwi crypto influencer Lark Davis.

Generally considered to be the biggest crypto scam of all time, Bitconnect collapsed in January 2018 after taking in an estimated US$2 billion ($2.6 billion) from investors.

The Cajee brothers have apparently disappeared to the United Kingdom.

Moneyweb reported that the Financial Sector Conduct Authority is looking into the matter, but says it does not have jurisdiction to investigate cryptocurrency.

Investors signed an agreement with a Hong Kong-based company that exonerates the company in the event of any “hack”.

 

Read MoreBitcoinCryptocurrency

You might be interested in