Big lie about the R54-billion Bitcoin Brothers

When the brothers Raees and Ameer Cajee were catapulted to infamy in 2021 as the Bitcoin Brothers, it was thanks to a report that they had operated a R54-billion crypto scheme in South Africa and absconded with the money.

However, this initial estimate of the amount stolen turned out to be wholly inaccurate.

Lawyers representing victims of the scam had hired an amateur crypto sleuth who traced the Bitcoin deposits made into Africrypt’s account to a wallet address that had received over 69,000 bitcoins.

However, former Luno financial crime investigations team lead Chris du Toit said the sleuth had made a massive blunder, as the wallet address actually belonged to a cryptocurrency exchange.

Although Du Toit didn’t name the exchange, MyBroadband has since established that the wallet address in question is one of Luno’s.

Despite being roundly debunked, the claim that Africrypt was the biggest Ponzi scheme in South African history is still circulating online.

Africrypt is a scam that operated in South Africa between 2019 and 2021 that allowed people to deposit South African rands or cryptocurrency and earn outsized monthly returns on their investments.

The company’s hook was its claim that Raees had developed revolutionary cryptocurrency trading software powered by artificial intelligence that could generate consistent monthly returns.

An investment presentation from around September 2020 claimed that the scheme achieved returns as high as 13% per month for clients on its “Aggressive” plan.

Africrypt earned the young Cajee brothers enough money to live an extravagant lifestyle — reportedly driving around in a Lamborghini Huracan and taking up residence in the luxurious Houghton Hotel.

Raees was 21 at the time of Africrypt’s collapse, while Ameer was 19.

The scheme came crashing down around them at the start of 2021. In a letter signed by Ameer dated 13 April 2021, the brothers told investors that Africrypt had been hacked and all its cryptocurrency holdings stolen.

Their claims were met with scepticism. Africrypt’s shutdown happened just months after Mirror Trading International collapsed, with its late founder and CEO Johann Steynberg making similar allegations of “hacking” before vanishing.

It wasn’t long before the Cajees, too, were in the wind.

The story flew under the media radar until June 2021, when Bloomberg reported that the brothers had gone missing along with $3.6 billion (R54 billion) in crypto assets.

However, it remains unclear exactly how much money had flowed through the scheme and how much they absconded with.

At one point, creditors had filed claims of around R140 million against the Africrypt estate, although it is unclear how many of these included fictitious returns they believe they were owed.

Although the brothers had gone to ground, they continued to communicate with journalists and filed responding papers in the court application brought to liquidate Africrypt.

In particular, Raees told the Wall Street Journal that they were managing just over $200 million at the height of the crypto boom, and alleged no more than $5 million was lost when Africrypt was hacked.

In July 2021, Raees surfaced in Tanzania to have court documents stamped at the South African High Commission in Dar es Salaam.

He revealed in the documents that they had been hiding in Dubai that May.

Other than these brief details, the brothers’ whereabouts had been unknown until recently.

MyBroadband reported on Thursday that the Public Prosecutor’s Office of the canton of Zurich confirmed that one of the brothers had been arrested in November 2021 and was not allowed to leave Switzerland.

Cajee was reportedly arrested while attempting to access safety deposit boxes they rented in Zurich to store hardware wallets — devices used to securely store crypto assets like Bitcoin.

He spent six months in pre-trial detention before being released on bail of 300,000 Swiss francs (around R5 million at the time).

As part of his bail conditions, Cajee had to surrender his passport and agree to remain in Switzerland.

He fought his bail conditions all the way to the Federal Supreme Court, which dismissed his complaint.

The court ruled that for a wealthy individual, being required to stay in Switzerland longer than planned is not a disproportionate restriction of freedom.

Swiss authorities declined to reveal which brother was arrested but confirmed that both men were the subject of a criminal investigation for suspected money laundering and that neither were currently in custody.

MyBroadband contacted Raees and Ameer Cajee for comment, but they did not respond by publication.