Biggest ever crypto scam sees Bitcoin worth $3.6 billion stolen by siblings | TechSpot
 
Bloomberg reports that Ameer Cajee and his brother Raees set up Africrypt in 2019 and it provided significant returns for investors. But in April, when Bitcoin hit its peak, Cajee, who was working as the company’s Chief Operating Officer, informed clients that Africrypt had been hacked. He also asked investors not to contact law enforcement as this would slow the recovery process, which raised suspicions.
 
Even more suspicious was Africrypt employees losing access to its back-end platforms a week before the alleged hack took place. Investors hired Hanekom Attorneys to investigate the matter and found that the company’s pooled funds were transferred from its South African accounts and client wallets to Bitcoin wallets and tumblers, or other large pools of Bitcoins, making them untraceable.
 
The law firm has been unable to locate the brothers, who are believed to have fled the country days before the “hack.” The incident has been reported to Hawks, an elite unit of the South African police force that deals with organized crime. South Africa’s Finance Sector Conduct Authority is also looking into Africrypt, though it cannot launch a formal investigation because crypto assets are not legally considered financial products. Global crypto exchanges have also been informed in case any attempts are made to convert the Bitcoins. Last year saw the now-defunct South African Bitcoin trader, Mirror Trading International, scam 23,000 Bitcoins, the equivalent to $1.2 billion, from investors.
 
I feel sorry for all the investors that lost their bitcoin investments. 

You mean stolen money gamble?🤔

Every time I hear about bitcoin scams a little grin creeps up my face and I nod to myself.
 
Crypto isn't a commodity or an investment. It's a waste of time, energy and money by those who to continue to evangelize it. 

kram36

CraptacularOne
Every time I hear about bitcoin scams a little grin creeps up my face and I nod to myself.
 
Crypto isn't a commodity or an investment. It's a waste of time, energy and money by those who to continue to evangelize it. 

To be so naive must be blissful.

To be so stupid with your money must be "freeing" 

kram36

CraptacularOne

kram36

CraptacularOne
Every time I hear about bitcoin scams a little grin creeps up my face and I nod to myself.
 
Crypto isn't a commodity or an investment. It's a waste of time, energy and money by those who to continue to evangelize it. 

To be so naive must be blissful.

To be so stupid with your money must be "freeing" 

You do know there is more then one way to get crypto currency, right? You don't have to buy it, you use something you already bought to acquire it.

I'm well aware of the ways in which to acquire it, trade it, mine it etc. Doesn't change my view on it all being a giant waste of time, money and energy and the whole crypto currency "industry" being little more than a scheme. 

CraptacularOne
Every time I hear about bitcoin scams a little grin creeps up my face and I nod to myself.

 
 

danlw
This is my biggest beef with crypto.  If money gets stolen from a bank, it is FDIC insured (to a point).  If crypto gets stolen its just gone with no way to retrieve it.

That's why you never let someone else have control of your crypto. The whole idea of crypto is to be your own bank, you hold it in your own personal wallet and nobody can take it, granted you use a safe wallet.

danlw

kram36

danlw
This is my biggest beef with crypto.  If money gets stolen from a bank, it is FDIC insured (to a point).  If crypto gets stolen its just gone with no way to retrieve it.

That's why you never let someone else have control of your crypto. The whole idea of crypto is to be your own bank, you hold it in your own personal wallet and nobody can take it, granted you use a safe wallet.

I do have a paper wallet with a small sum of crypto I mined a while back when my 970 was remotely viable.  But even then I'm paranoid.  To be really secure you can only transfer money out of the paper wallet once... then you have to put it into a new paper wallet.  Then there are hardware keys... I don't trust those either because it is electronic and electronics can stop working.  If I did get into Crypto I'd probably keep several paper wallets so that not everything is in one wallet... and I'd have to get a safe deposit box to keep backup in case of fire.

You can store your "paper wallet" information in a password manager instead of needing to keep it as a physical object.  It depends which you trust more.  I personally trust a password manager more than a physical object.
You are totally right about the one-time-use thing.  After I transfer out of a paper wallet, I make a note in my password manager about that paper wallet address being potentially compromised.
If transferring out of a paper wallet, it's best to transfer the amount you want to wherever, and then transfer the remainder to a new paper wallet.  There is some risk in any transfer, so it's not a perfect system.  But it is a pretty good system and the cheapest (free, except for transfer fees) option.  If you find yourself transferring a lot, the transfer fees could easily be more than the price of a hardware wallet, so you have to weigh your options and figure out which is best for you.