$16M cryptocurrency scam goes bankrupt

• Willie Breedt, the CEO of VaultAge Solutions, allegedly defrauded over 2,000 investors and stealing around $16.3 million.
• Breedt has been handed a sequestration order by a local South African court. 
• Authorities have confiscated Breedt’s laptop and a Ledger Nano cryptocurrency hard wallet.

A local South African court has declared Willie Breedt, CEO of cryptocurrency investment firm VaultAge Solutions, bankrupt while he was on the run from investors. Breedt was accused of defrauding over 2,000 investors and stealing around $16.3 million. According to a recent News24 report, the CEO has been handed a sequestration order by the Gauteng High Court in Pretoria. A sequestration order is a court-delivered order that forces a debtor into bankruptcy. 

Before going into hiding a couple of weeks ago, Breedt had opened a case of intimidation with police in Jeffreys Bay. A few debt collectors hired by frustrated investors had tracked him down at a guesthouse in the Silver Lakes Estate in Pretoria, which he had booked using a fake name. 

After the sequestration order was granted, South Africa’s Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation, aka “the Hawks,” raided the guesthouse. They confiscated a laptop and a Ledger Nano crypto hard wallet, which is suspected of containing some of the stolen funds. Breedt has not been arrested, according to the News24 report. 

South Africa’s central bank has ordered PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) to investigate VaultAge Solutions and the agents who might have carried out transactions on the company’s behalf.