{"id":44640,"date":"2021-06-20T14:03:15","date_gmt":"2021-06-20T11:03:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/?p=44640"},"modified":"2025-08-31T17:54:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-31T14:54:07","slug":"south-african-bank-denies-link-to-3-6-billion-cryptocurrency-fraud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/south-african-bank-denies-link-to-3-6-billion-cryptocurrency-fraud\/","title":{"rendered":"South African bank denies link to $3.6 billion cryptocurrency fraud"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>One of South Africa&#8217;s largest banks, First National Bank (FNB), denies allegations of links to the insolvent crypto investment company Africrypt. <a href=\"https:\/\/bitcoinist.com\/3-6-billion-crypto-theft-south-african-bank-denies-relationship-with-fraud-accused-africrypt\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Bitcoinist<\/a> reports this, citing local media.<\/p>\n<p>In April, Africrypt suddenly suspended operations, citing a breach of its trading system. According to management, the cyberattack affected clients&#8217; accounts, wallets and nodes.<\/p>\n<p>Media estimates put customer funds in the company&#8217;s funds at $3.6 billion. According to reports, after the alleged breach, Africrypt director Amir Kaaji and his brother Reis Kaaji transferred clients&#8217; investments in Bitcoin to their own wallets.<\/p>\n<p>Hanekom Attorneys, the law firm hired to investigate the victims of Africrypt&#8217;s insolvency, claims that the brothers used mixing services to obscure traces.<\/p>\n<p>A representative of the country&#8217;s oldest bank (which has been operating since 1838) Nadia Maharaj declined to acknowledge any link with the company:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>\u201cFNB reiterates that it has no banking relationship with Africrypt. Due to client confidentiality requirements, the bank cannot provide any information about any specific accounts.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The investigation into the incident was hindered by the absence of applicable norms: the central bank said cryptocurrency-related matters fall under the jurisdiction of the Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA); the agency rejected this claim.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier this year, a South African intergovernmental working group proposed tighter regulation of the cryptocurrency industry in the country.<\/p>\n<p>Subscribe to ForkLog&#8217;s news on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/forklog\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Facebook<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of South Africa&#8217;s largest banks, First National Bank (FNB), denies allegations of ties to the insolvent crypto investment company Africrypt. Bitcoinist reports this, citing local media.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":44641,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"select":"1","news_style_id":"1","cryptorium_level":"","_short_excerpt_text":"","creation_source":"","_metatest_mainpost_news_update":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1154,1839],"class_list":["post-44640","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-crimes","tag-south-africa"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"views":"21","promo_type":"1","layout_type":"1","short_excerpt":"","is_update":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44640","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44640"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44640\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44642,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44640\/revisions\/44642"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/u1f987.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}