[imagesource:here]

We are a long way from finding any sort of resolution to the ‘crypto bros’ saga, but each new bit of information that emerges only serves to heighten the public’s interest.

Raees Cajee, one half of the duo behind Africrypt, a so-called cryptocurrency investment platform that the Cajee brothers claim was hacked, has now filed court papers to oppose the company’s liquidation.

The brothers’ whereabouts have been the subject of much conjecture – it was recently revealed that they had taken advantage of Vanuatu’s controversial “golden passports” scheme last year – but the court papers do offer clues.

MyBroadband reports that Raees Cajee’s affidavit bears the stamp of the South African High Commission in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

It is dated July 19, 2021, and refutes various claims made against the brothers:

“The media and greater public have speculated that Ameer and I have fled the country with billions of Rands worth of cryptocurrency,” Cajee stated in his answering affidavit, which MyBroadband has seen.

“This is not true. We were forced to flee the country — with our immediate family, including my disabled father — after receiving numerous death threats,” he said, adding that they are still receiving threats.

“We have had our location tracked, our mobile numbers hacked, and my father was, also, at one stage kidnapped.”

The brothers had previously been in Dubai, which is where he claims his father, Bilal, was held against his will for 12 hours, with threats made against the Cajee family.

Raees Cajee says because of these threats, he has decided to keep his whereabouts confidential, and maintains that Africrypt was hacked.

Some may find that hard to believe given that the brothers claim their previous venture, started in May 2019, was also hacked.

In the Tanzanian affidavit, Raees Cajee says the Africrypt hack came from a Ukrainian IP address

Meanwhile, on the other side of the equation, legal eagles representing investors who are now out of pocket have been doing digging of their own.

This via Moneyweb:

Darren Hanekom of Hanekom Attorneys, acting for a number of investors, disputes Cajee’s version of events on the basis that the Bitcoin blockchain shows funds being shipped to a bitcoin address apparently controlled by the Cajees.

The following image shows just one of the addresses used by the Cajees, and an amount of 75 459 bitcoin, worth $2.4 billion (R36 billion) deposited into the address and subsequently withdrawn in 1 292 transactions. The address was still being used as a week ago, when around 2.3 bitcoin was deposited and withdrawn.

Claims against Africrypt so far lodged total more than R200 million, says Hanekom.

You can see the image mentioned above here.

Looks like we’ll be seeing many claims, counterclaims, and denials before there is any sort of closure on this story.

[sources:mybroadband&moneyweb]