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The Cajee brothers, referred to as the ‘crypto bros’, are currently in hiding.

The brothers are responsible for Africrypt, a so-called cryptocurrency investment platform that they claim was hacked, causing massive losses for investors who feel they’ve been duped.

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

At present, claims against Africrypt by South Africans total at least R200 million.

Attorney Darren Hanekom, who represents a number of Africrypt clients in a lawsuit, alleges that Africrypt controlled around R54 billion in funds, with R43 billion of that lost in the ‘hack’.

We learnt yesterday that Raees Cajee was recently in Tanzania, after he filed court papers to oppose Africrypt’s liquidation, as well as alleging that his family has received death threats and his father was kidnapped.

In an affidavit, Raees Cajee said Africrypt only controlled roughly $6 million (around R89 million) of funds.

One man who could help settle the debate is South African-born Hamilton Cheong, a forensic sleuth now based in the US, who is currently working with law enforcement to track down the Africrypt funds.

His story is an interesting one, having lived on the South African streets for extended periods, before moving to Israel and then the US.

Moneyweb reports:

Cheong’s company, Crypto Investigation Bureau (CIB), helps governments and organisations secure their digital assets against modern-day threats coming from ransomware and organised crime.

It has developed a blockchain track-and-trace programme called God’s View to hunt down missing digital assets, and it was this programme that was used to piece together the movement of funds into and out of Africrypt wallets…

Cheong says the evidence does not support the story of a hack originating out of Ukraine, as claimed by Raees Cajee in an affidavit before the Gauteng High Court seeking to stop the final liquidation of Africrypt.

The Cajee brothers claim the hack occurred on April 13, and came via a Ukrainian IP address.

Cheong isn’t buying that, and believes that Hanekom’s R43 billion figure is far more accurate than those stated by the Cajee brothers.

It doesn’t help that shortly before leaving the country, the brothers sold a Lamborghini, a Ferrari, and two properties.

The forensic sleuth on their tail says the hack story doesn’t add up:

“If this is true, the hackers would have broken through several security layers in a matter of minutes to get to the crypto, and that is extremely unlikely. We don’t think this was a hack. One reason we say this is that four months before the alleged hack, funds were being depleted out of wallets under the control of Africrypt.”

Cheong and his company are currently compiling a full forensic report, and whilst he says “we must assume the Cajee brothers are innocent until proven guilty”, he questions why they have gone into hiding rather than assist with investigations that would clear their names.

Perhaps that forensic report will provide the details needed to fill in many of the saga’s gaps.

[source:moneyweb]