The secret of two brothers who stole 254 billion rubles in cryptocurrency and bought passports on a distant island

Two brothers who committed the largest theft of bitcoins, acquired citizenship on a remote Pacific island a few months before their disappearance. 21-year-old Raees Cajee and 18-year-old Emir (Ameer) fled to South Africa in April this year. They told their investors that the website of their company "Africrypt" was hacked and all funds from their accounts were stolen. Now the brothers claim that they themselves became victims of a criminal scheme.

Recently, documents were found confirming that Raiz bought the citizenship of the Republic of Vanuatu for 95,000 pounds (about 9.7 million rubles) in October, and the Emir – in January 2021. Now the scammers claim that they themselves have become victims of organized crime. They categorically deny any accusations and claim that they wrote off the money from the accounts under the threat of death received from criminal syndicates.

The brothers say that the company's account has never had 2.5 billion pounds (about 254 billion rubles). They claim that no more than 3.6 million pounds (about 365 million rubles) were lost. They do not refuse to cooperate with the investigation and prepare documents confirming their innocence.

The Kezhi brothers are not the only ones who bought passports of the Republic of Vanuatu. Since January 2020, about two thousand people have acquired citizenship on a remote island in the Pacific Ocean, where about 300,000 residents live. In fact, anyone can do this by investing 95,000 pounds (about 9.7 million rubles) in the state treasury.

South African police say Raiz and Emir sold their Lamborghini and rented an apartment in Durban a few weeks before they disappeared. Then they sent e-mails to investors asking them not to inform the authorities about the hacker attack, because it would delay the return of the money.

The prosecutor's office claims that the scammers deleted some of the "Africrypt" programs a week before the alleged hacking. It was discovered that in November 2020, investors noticed a number of strange money transfers from their bitcoin wallets using dark technologies, which made the direction of funds impossible to track.

As a result of fraudulent operations, 58 investors were affected. They were able to obtain a temporary liquidation order against the scam brothers. The accused Emir and Reiz challenge this decision.

Meanwhile, officials from the government of Zimbabwe believed in a fairy tale and gave the crook $ 40 million (2.9 billion rubles) to use Microsoft products for free.