What it was
Africrypt took money from South African investors and, according to the statement issued by the liquidators' legal representative, "used the fiat currency to purchase crypto assets on a number of asset exchanges, and promised investors exorbitant returns of up to 10%/day on their investments". ITWeb reports that Ameer and Raees Cajee founded it in 2019 and that Ameer, as chief operating officer, wrote to investors on 13 April 2021 saying operations had been halted after a "recent breach" in which client wallets had been compromised.
The brothers left South Africa shortly after. We could not establish the company's legal form from a record we were able to open, so it is left undocumented. The liquidators have separately asked why no communication came from Recreate Wealth (Pty) Ltd or ReaCreate Wealth Limited, two Hong Kong companies they say were the entities that actually contracted with Africrypt clients.
What is contested, and by whom
The numbers do not agree and nothing has settled them. Investors quoted by ITWeb put the total at $3.6 billion. TechCentral reported the wallets as "emptied of more than R40-billion in bitcoin". Against that, the liquidators' own statement says the breach "caused a loss of approximately R84-million, although an amount of R200-million had been received and invested on behalf of investors", and it questions where the difference went. The liquidators also say there is "no evidence that this was indeed a hack" and that funds left the wallets four months before the claimed breach. That is an allegation by liquidators, not a finding.
On the record
Africrypt was placed in provisional liquidation on 26 April 2021 by a South African high court, after the investor group Badaspex applied for it. Eugene Januarie and Welcome Jacobs were appointed liquidators, and in August 2021 the court granted them extended powers to trace assets and hold an enquiry. That order is what the insolvency tag records.
No court or regulator has made any finding of fraud. South Africa's Financial Sector Conduct Authority opened a preliminary investigation and closed the file: its head of enforcement told ITWeb in 2021 that "it appeared that we had no jurisdiction in this matter as they did not deal with a financial product", before reopening it to look again. As of the January 2022 reporting cited here, the Hawks were investigating, no charges had been brought, and lawyers for investors were still pressing for a prosecution. This entry stops at what we could open.