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Investors prepare to file charges against crypto firm VualtAge founder

Investors of the South African crypto firm VaultAge Solution fear that its founder might have scammed them.

Richard Patterson / Flickr

Thu, 11 Jun 2020, 03:42 am UTC

VaultAge Solutions CEO Willie Breedt might soon be facing charges as investors of his cryptocurrency firm are already discussing with lawyers how to proceed with their planned legal action. Around 2,000 investors of the South African-based company claim that Breedt scammed them out of around $17 million, according to Coin Telegraph.

Founded in 2018, VaultAge Solutions accepted investments with the promise of “weekly returns on customer deposits through cryptocurrency mining and trading.” The business reportedly drew in over 2,000 investors despite not being registered with South Africa’s Financial Services Conduct Authority.

In May, the company as well as Breedt was already investigated for fraud by South Africa’s Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation. Apparently, some investors have already initiated legal action against the firm claiming that they only received one percent of the expected returns with some of them not having received any returns since they invested.

Breedt left for Mozambique in December 2019. The VaultAge CEO has not returned since then according to the South African Department of Home Affairs.

However, Breedt issued a statement that explained he still had other commitments and promised that investors will eventually get their money back by the end of May. “I am busy attending to the commitments I have made to members,” he told News24 in a statement. “The commitment is to have all the initial capital paid back by 31 May.”

However, the promised refund did not happen, according to News24. Breedt still has not surfaced prompting more than 2,000 VaultAge investors to file a class action suit.

On Tuesday, investors meet with Gordon Kayser of the legal firm GTA Kayser Attorney in Pretoria to discuss the class action which they plan to file in the High Court in Port Elizabeth. “We aim to have the application where we will seek relief from the court, before the High Court at the end of the week,” investor Annette Veldsman said.

Investors fear that the R277 million (approximately $17 million) they invested into VaultAge might already be lost. Breedt closed his offices since January and reports surfaced that one of his accounts, which previously contained a balance of $3.15 million, is now empty.

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