Two Brothers Steal 3 Billion in Bitcoins in the Largest Crypto Heist in History

Two young South African brothers have disappeared without a trace, with bitcoins worth 3 billion. Ameer and Raees Cajee, barely 18 and 21 years old, took off with 69,000 bitcoins.

Those belonged to people who had entrusted their money to their investment vehicle Africrypt. It may be the most prominent crypto theft in history.

According to the current bitcoin price, the stolen crypto coins are worth about 1.9 billion euros. But when the brothers took it off in April, it was still more than 3 billion euros.

According to the Africrypt website, which is now offline, the company was founded in 2019. Raees, 21, claims that he first heard about bitcoin in 2009, when he was 8 years old and was immediately interested in it. According to the story on the website, he started mining Ethereum — the second-largest cryptocurrency — while still in school and developed his own trading algorithm using artificial intelligence (AI). For example, he built “one of the largest AI companies in Africa” from his bedroom”.

The Johannesburg-based company targeted high net worth individuals and celebrities, according to Coingeek. As is often the case with crypto investments, Africrypt promised high returns, sometimes even up to 10 percent per day. You could invest with them for an amount of 100,000 dollars. They had many customers, but there were also those who entrusted more than 1 million euros to the company.

When bitcoin’s price peaked in April, the Chief Operating Officer sent a statement to Africrypt’s customers via email. It said the company had been hacked, and their online crypto wallets were at risk.