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Mystery Africrypt investor wants Cajee charges dropped

By Stephen Timm
Johannesburg, 15 Nov 2021

A group of Africrypt investors, who lost millions following an alleged hack of the crypto platform earlier this year, say they will only accept an offer from a mystery investor to inject $5 million (R76 million) in the firm if the investor agrees to certain conditions.

This, despite investors with the majority of claims against the platform having voted unconditionally in favour of the offer, following a six-hour virtual meeting on Friday.

The mystery investor, who has not revealed identification details, has offered to put in the money for a 51% stake in the company and in so doing, take it out of liquidation, on condition that criminal charges against the platform’s founders Raees and Ameer Cajee are dropped.

The brothers have been in hiding since informing investors in April that the platform had been hacked.

The liquidators’ attorney, Ruann Kruger, confirmed in an e-mailed letter to creditors today that those investors representing 69% of the total ascertainable claims at the time voted in favour of the offer unconditionally.

However, creditors who made up 21% of claims voted in favour of the compromise subject to the implementation of additional terms and conditions that were put to the provisional liquidators during the meeting. The remaining 10% of the creditors rejected the offer.

To enable the provisional liquidators to properly verify each claim, creditors have been asked to provide full details and proof of each claim by Friday.

Attorney Darren Hanekom, who is representing a number of creditors, says the additional terms and conditions include that the settlement is no longer conditional on the investors withdrawing their criminal cases.

Hanekom says further protection mechanisms were also put in place regarding the mystery investor’s contractual obligations to the business.

“We await confirmation as to whether the amendment version has been accepted; thereafter, it will need to be made an order of court.”

Update:

For it to take effect, investors representing 75% of total claims must vote in favour of the offer.

The investor’s original offer is that $4 million of the amount be used to settle investors’ claims, with the remaining $1 million used so the platform can again trade crypto-currency.

However, it is unclear how much investors are owed. The liquidators are dealing with a figure of R200 million, but this relates only to the amount investors deposited in the platform and not any resultant returns generated from the trades.

Attorney Gerhard Botha, who represents another group of investors, says investors are still negotiating over the amount of $4 million the mystery investor has offered to cover their claims.

He suggests the only way the amount owing to investors can be quantified accurately is to go on the rand value paid in by investors, less the rand value withdrawn.

One investor says one of their proposed amendments to the mystery investor’s offer is that investors “would have to work together to get all the money back over time”.

He notes the identity of the investor is expected to be revealed once the offer had been finalised and accepted by both parties, adding that “if it’s people that are tainted, we won’t deal with it”.

Some investors ITWeb spoke to questioned the timing of the offer, given that the Cajees are expected to appear next Tuesday virtually before an inquiry held by the liquidators, after their appearance was delayed from last month.

It’s unclear whether the hearing will go ahead next week.