Cajee brothers return to South Africa following Africrypt scandal: Investigation reveals
New reports confirm Raees and Ameer Cajee have returned to South Africa following the Africrypt platform's collapse, as affected investors continue attempts to deliver legal documentation.
The two brothers from South Africa known in media circles as the "Bitcoin Brothers," Raees and Ameer Cajee, have discreetly made their way back to their home country several years following the implosion of Africrypt, their cryptocurrency investment platform, as revealed by a fresh television investigative report.
An investigative broadcast that went to air on Sunday via the Carte Blanche program disclosed that the siblings are currently living within the protected confines of Zimbali Estate located in KwaZulu-Natal, as documented by MyBroadband in their Monday coverage. The investigation revealed that when reporters made an attempt to access the residential property, they encountered resistance from private security personnel who prevented entry.
The investigative journalists additionally tracked the siblings to a vacation spot in the Umhlanga area and uncovered a recent residential address located in Johannesburg, though all attempts to establish direct communication with the brothers were unsuccessful.
Gerhard Botha, serving as legal counsel for an investor claiming losses amounting to approximately $50 million, stated that legal documentation has yet to be successfully delivered to the brothers. "They can protect themselves. They've got security. Because they have money," Botha told the program.
Cointelegraph reached out to law firms representing duped investors for comment, but had not received a response by publication.
Africrypt pitched 13% monthly returns
Between the years 2019 and 2021, the Cajee brothers ran Africrypt, marketing the service as a crypto investment platform offering high yields. The platform promised investors they could achieve monthly returns reaching as high as 13% through what was described as a proprietary trading mechanism supposedly powered by artificial intelligence technology. The platform facilitated deposits in both South African rand currency and various cryptocurrencies.
The Africrypt operation came crashing down on April 13, 2021, at which point the platform's founders notified their user base that a security breach had occurred and that the platform's cryptocurrency holdings had been taken by hackers. In the weeks that followed, the two brothers departed from South Africa, ultimately making their way through the Maldives before finally arriving in Dubai while navigating pandemic-era travel limitations.
Initial reporting by media outlets indicated that the missing funds could be as high as $3.6 billion, though follow-up investigations revised this estimate to a range between $40 million and $50 million, as reported by MyBroadband. The precise total of funds lost by investors has not been definitively established.
The Africrypt situation garnered worldwide scrutiny as the platform's founders relocated through several different countries and legal jurisdictions, with stops including Tanzania and the United Arab Emirates. In 2021, Ameer Cajee faced arrest in Switzerland during a visit to access safe-deposit boxes that authorities suspected contained hardware wallets storing cryptocurrency assets. Following his detention, he secured release after posting bail several months afterward.
South Africa warns crypto, stablecoins pose new risks
During November 2025, the central banking authority of South Africa designated digital assets and stablecoins as representing an emerging threat to financial system stability amid accelerating cryptocurrency adoption rates. Within its second Financial Stability Report released for 2025, the South African Reserve Bank reported that user accounts across the nation's three largest cryptocurrency exchanges had climbed to 7.8 million users by July, while approximately $1.5 billion remained in custodial holdings at the conclusion of 2024.
The central bank raised concerns that cryptocurrency's inherently borderless characteristics could enable capital to circumvent exchange-control regulations that govern cross-border capital movement. The published report further highlighted that stablecoins pegged to the US dollar have progressively supplanted Bitcoin (BTC) and other major cryptocurrency tokens as the dominant trading pair on domestic platforms, attributable to their reduced price volatility characteristics.