Two South African brothers, founders of a cryptocurrency trading platform, have disappeared with more than 2 billion euros in bitcoins. If they stole the money, it would be the largest crypto theft ever, writes news agency Bloomberg News.
A total of 69,000 bitcoins are missing. The value now stands at just over 29,000 euros per bitcoin.
The brothers’ trading platform, Africrypt, allowed investors to invest in the cryptocurrency. Their customers noticed in April that something was wrong. According to the brothers, the company had fallen victim to a hack. They asked the investors not to say anything to the authorities, because this would hinder the recovery of the bitcoins.
‘Immediately suspicious’
Some investors did not trust the brothers and decided to hire a law firm. “We were immediately suspicious,” the law firm said. “In addition, Africrypt employees lost access to the system seven days before the alleged hack.”
The brothers have since gone missing: calls go straight to voicemail, the website of the trading platform is down and the bitcoins are also untraceable by means of so-called ‘mixers’. A mixer brings bitcoins from all kinds of users together in one big pot. These are redistributed to the original owners with new transactions. In this way, the origin is much more difficult to trace.
A formal investigation by the South African authorities would be difficult; cryptocurrencies are not an official currency. According to Bloomberg, this incident could be another impetus for increased oversight of the crypto trading market.
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