There's a small chance that someone was investigating his old accounts and that they accessed his BlackHat but it's very unlikely. Died, and He Had the Passwords", "Pre-filing report of the proposed monitor", "Controversial QuadrigaCX cryptocurrency exchange placed in bankruptcy", "Quadriga Should Shift to Bankruptcy Proceedings, Monitor Says", "FBI Probing Bitcoin Exchange Quadriga Over Missing $136 Million, Source Alleges", "Quadriga: Lawyers for users of bankrupt crypto firm seek exhumation of founder", "How Gerald Cotten built Quadriga and created the ensuing crypto storm", "Ponzi Schemes, Private Yachts, and a Missing $250 Million in Crypto: The Strange Tale of Quadriga", "Geek Speak: Gerald Cotton, CEO of Quadriga CX", "Crypto chaos: From Vancouver to Halifax, tracing the mystery of Quadriga's missing millions", "Quadriga's late founder used to store clients' Bitcoin passwords on paper so they wouldn't get lost", "A crypto exchange CEO dies-with the only key to $137 million", "Details emerging about Gerald Cotten, the young founder of QuadrigaCX", "My smart contract just ate $14 millionnow what? Neither Costodian or Quadriga could access the funds. Following Quadrigas implosion in 2019, it was investigated by the Ontario Securities Commission, which concluded that, "what happened at Quadriga was an old-fashioned fraud wrapped in modern technology. So his spiral down into a life of crime was either pure greed or him seeking the thrill. I personally believe that Cotten is not dead but I would like to hear from people who know more than me about this topic and what they think about the situation. Official investigations into the matter have yet to produce any definitive answers. March 30, 2022. No one but him can access accounts, he ran a whole market on a laptop by himself with no other employees or partners anymore so only he could access it and he suddenly dies when he would be in massive debt for delayed payments and would likely be convicted for fraud or money laundering. pic.twitter.com/rGymJ5f9Or. Zou resorted to the cryptocurrency scheme to avoid bank charges when moving Vancouver, shifting his money from the US to a Canadian account. Now . I think there were a couple years when it ran legitimately I dont think Gerry could have imagined a future with money pouring in the way it eventually did.. [17] Michael Gastauer, Chief Executive of WB21, has been named in a civil lawsuit by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission as part of a US$165 million fraud. CIBC stated that they could not determine the ownership of the money and could not contact Cotten or Quadriga. Given the intrigue, some went so far as to question whether Mr Cotten had really died and demanded his body be exhumed. did gerry and his wife fake his passing and steal the money? Mar. Some also believe that Gerald isnt even dead at all but rather hiding away with the hundreds of millions of dollars he controlled. [9][10], The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) were reportedly investigating the company. Cotten passed away from complications that arose from Crohn's disease while on a honeymoon in Indiaapparently taking some $215 million of customer funds to the grave. Indian authorities maintain that Cotten, whose body was repatriated to Nova Scotia for a small closed-casket funeral, died on Dec. 9, 2018, shortly after checking into a luxury hotel in Jaipur. Gerald Cotten died suddenly of Crohn's disease - or did he? Disclosure: Mathias Dpfner, CEO of Business Insider's parent company, Axel Springer, is a Netflix board member. The 33-year-old has attempted to get his money back in a lawsuit, but hasn't had any luck as yet. We explain who Gerald Cotten is, the subject of this documentary, and reveal where he is now, including the mystery surrounding his downfall. Investigations into the firm revealed that Mr Cotten made numerous fake accounts on Quadriga to influence trades on the platform, at one time being involved personally in 87 per cent of transactions. Cotten was young, energetic, passionate about cryptocurrency so when. [22][23] C$28 million held by Costodian, a Quadriga payment processor, was frozen by the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC) in January 2018. [15] He learned about Bitcoin in Toronto and travelled to Vancouver, British Columbia, where he founded Quadriga in November 2013 with Michael Patryn. So far, only about $46 million has been recovered. https://bit.ly/3cAIH4j Newest Vid's https://bit.ly/3JkFmEqFollow Us On Facebook https://bit.ly/3oh5cS8Gerald Cotten or Gerry Cotten's life and tragic passing are shrouded in mystery. Gerald Cotten. X-rays. Even after Cotten's death news, some people still believe that he is alive, and one of the main reasons is because of his mysterious death. Cotten was the only one with access to necessary permissions. Thinking that Jennifer had murdered Cotten, the Telegram group spiraled out of control. Lammer believes the evidence does suggest that Cotten died suddenly - having battled Crohn's disease for a number of years, even though the timing was suspicious. "[46] The Official Ontario Securities report on Quadriga is attached here. [17], Ernst & Young reported on 6 February 2019 that C$468,675 (US$354,300) of bitcoin were "inadvertently" sent to an inaccessible cold wallet. The podcast was hosted by Takara Small. The tech-savvy individual traced domain names, links, and trades on the blockchain, discovering a lengthy track-record of schemes, from Mr Cottens early days on TalkGold, to his association with a business partner named Michael Patryn. Soon after his death, however, reports surfaced that nearly 80,000 users of QuadrigaCX at the time Canadas largest cryptocurrency exchange were unable to access funds totalling more $190m. So what exactly happened to Cotten, and is he still alive somewhere sitting on a mountain of stolen crypto? Where was the rest of the money? The thing is, a CEOs death shouldnt lock customers out of their money. An official investigation concluded that Quadriga was"an old-fashioned fraud wrapped in modern technology". [42], Quadriga continued to accept deposits until 26 January. Gerald Gerry Cotten is the founder of Canadian cryptocurrency exchange Quadriga Fintech Solutions and is at the helm of a groundbreaking investment scam that the Netflix documentary investigates. lets break it all down. Someone tracked Patryn to a scam forum called TalkGold, where Patryn talked to one user in particular, sceptre, a bunch. "I kept asking them: Where's my money? Here's a link to the BlackHat forum. Jilted investors of Cotton's crypto firm QuadrigaCX have demanded his corpse be exhumed and tests run to confirm its his body. There was no way of getting my money back. "It did become an obsession.. I really prayed it wasn't a scam. Netflixs documentary definitely seems to be in the corner that Cotten did die, despite the mystery surrounding his death. Gerald died while on a honeymoon with his wife Jennifer in India, Cotten has been recast since his death as a thrill-seeking scammer, Michael Patryn - real name Omar Dhanani - had previously been convicted of identity fraud, Bitcoin miner electrocuted to death by his computer after forcing it to churn out endless amounts of crypto. In her memoir, Ms Robertson denies shes part of an elaborate plot to fake her husbands death, adding that speculation has led to death threats from stalkers demanding she returns the missing millions. Image Credit: CTV Your Morning/YouTube. At this point, lots of investors think that Cotten, a man alleged to have a history of scamming, really had faked his own death. In December 2018, Cotten died during his honeymoon with his wife, Jennifer Robertson, in Jaipur, India. After beginning as an entrepreneur, Cotten founded Quadriga Fintech Solutions in 2013 and the company evolved to become the largest crypto exchange in the country, and it even helped to legitimize Bitcoin. [6], Ernst & Young was appointed as an independent monitor while Quadriga was granted temporary legal protection from its creditors under the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act. [27] Another payment processor used by Quadriga, Crypto Capital, was named in a civil suit filed by the New York Attorney General in April 2019. He would then use this crypto to make investments himself on other digital exchanges as he furnished his own pockets at the expense of his investors, according to accounting firm Ernst & Young. [19] Other than a few contractors, it had no employees, offices or bank accounts thereafter. The thing about conspiracy theories, though, is that they mutate out of control very quickly, and arent always reflective of the latest evidence. Some evidence suggested that Jennifer, if real, was acting strangely. Cotten neglected to pass on the passwords to the accounts, and in 2019, when investigators tracked down Cotten's digital wallets, all the money was gone. Something was afoot. [11] Lawyers for the customers of the exchange have asked that Cotten's body be exhumed.[12]. [24][25][26], According to court filings, Quadriga also used WB21 as a payment processor. Cotten passed away from complications that arose from Crohns disease while on a honeymoon in Indiaapparently taking some $215 million of customer funds to the grave. Robertsons sister, for the record, doesnt think that Cotten had fabricated his relationship with Jennifer. [4] Blockchain analysts have reported that they are unable to find evidence of Quadriga's cold wallets on the blockchain, a public ledger used for cryptocurrencies. Trust No One: The Hunt for the Crypto King. Either this is a 1 in 100 million coincidence or he is still alive. They surfed his social media accounts at first, then traced Cottens digital footprints even more closely for clues. It was a perfect match, sparked up on Tinder, she said in the documentary. Conspiracy theorists insist that Cotten faked his own death, however, as many irregularities surrounding his death began to circulate, including a copy of his misspelled death certificate and the fact that his funeral had a closed casket. A new documentary on his mysterious death called Dead Man's Switch: A Crypto Mystery, airing on Discovery+, looks into accusations the crypto king made off with millions in investors' cash. So the Globe goes to Cottens hospital in India to put the whole fake death thing to bed. A C$24.7 million disbursement fund has been planned with C$300,000 to go to Cotten's widow, Jennifer Robertson, who advanced that amount to start the court proceedings; C$200,000 will go to Ernst & Young and another C$250,000 to its lawyers; C$229,842 will go to Quadriga's lawyers; and C$17,000 to independent contractors. The business was run from Cotten's encrypted laptop from Cotten's home in Fall River, Nova Scotia. Quadriga CX was left owning its 76,000 investors around $215million (CAD). More than three years after the sudden death of Quadriga CEO Gerald Cotten and the revelations that the company was a massive cryptocurrency scam, his widow,. It left Robertson the entire C$9.6-million estate and named her as the trustee. [1], The company's CEO and founder, Gerald William Cotten, allegedly died in 2018 after traveling to India. "At that time, there was nothing I could do. Check out: Personal Finance Insider's picks for best cryptocurrency exchanges. "It just makes me more depressed about it," Zou told Sky News. The funeral, according to a Redditor claiming to be a contractor for QuadrigaCX, said that it was a closed-casket affair, and that Jennifer was fake grieving and dancing at the funeral to bacchanalian excess, and even kicked out Geralds family. I just prayed. However, it was eventually discovered that Gerald had transferred all of his belongings to his wife before his death. His death certificate spells his name wrong, he was supposedly buried in a closed casket in Canada even though there is no evidence his body was ever moved from India and why would it need to be a closed casket? Some have speculated his death was a clever ruse and there have been calls to have his body exhumed to prove it was a "fake". And who dies from Crohns disease at 24 years old? Still, all this evidence was circumstantialinvestors hadnt yet found a smoking gun. Supposedly, Cottens business associates didnt even know he was married. [33] After the exchange was put into maintenance mode for several days in January, they announced on the 31st that they were applying for creditor protection. She has also said she has no idea what the passwords are to access sequestered customer funds, and that it wasnt written down anywhere. Soon enough, QuadrigaCXs customers struggled to withdraw money from the exchange. His clients were locked out of about $250 million, and investigators later. [7][8] On 8 April 2019 the firm entered bankruptcy under the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act as the possibility of a successful reorganization appeared to be remote. About C$1.2 billion worth of bitcoin was exchanged on Quadriga. On the 9th, he allegedly died after episodes of cardiac arrest. Gerald Cotten, 30, died abruptly in December 2018 of complications relating to Crohns disease while on honeymoon in Jaipur, India, with his wife, Jennifer Robertson. When Quadriga CEO Gerald Cotten died suddenly in 2018, the passcodes for his cryptocurrency exchange died with him. Gerald died while on a honeymoon with his wife Je Email us at tech@the-sun.co.uk, Ring removes free perks for millions of users, you'll have pay to get them back, Android users told check for five Google 'danger phrases' don't ignore list, Facebook's hidden list reveals if you're a 'target' for criminals, People are just realizing Apple upgraded the iPhone with 7 life-changing secrets, 2020 THE SUN, US, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED | TERMS OF USE | PRIVACY | YOUR AD CHOICES | SITEMAP, Tong Zou tells his devastating story in new Netflix doc, Gerald 'Gerry' Cotten died in 2018, taking password to access funds with him. ET. It stated that Gerald Cotten committed fraud by opening accounts under aliases and crediting himself with fictitious currency and crypto asset balances, which he traded with unsuspecting clients and that "What happened at Quadriga was an old-fashioned fraud wrapped in modern technology. There was no autopsy on the body, for instance, and Cotten had signed his will two weeks after he diedleaving his riches to Jennifer. And why did the Indian hospital that treated Cotten misspell his name on his death certificate? His will was signed off just two weeks before he and wife Jennifer Robertson travelled to India on their honeymoon. Was the CEOknown for his luxurious lifestyle, which included jets, supercars and vacationsmurdered by a mob debt collector or a jealous lover? Do you have a story for The Sun Online Tech & Science team? While the large increase in volume increased commissions, it also caused cash-flow problems due to the exchange's reliance on external payment processors and its lack of a proper accounting system. Did Cotten fake his own death, investors began to ask, absconding to lands anew under a new name and a surgically rejigged face? Lived In Los Angeles CA, Austin TX, Van Nuys CA . In that case, $851 million entrusted to Crypto Capital had been "lost, stolen or absconded with", according to the suit. Quadriga had four employees in 2015 with offices in Vancouver and Toronto, but ran out of money by June 2015. Netflix Special on Bitcoin Fraudster Gerald Cotten, His Wife, and QuadrigaCX. When Canadian blockchain whiz Gerald Cotten died unexpectedly last year, hundreds of millions of dollars in investor funds vanished into the crypto ether. Business picked up when Bitcoin hit the big time in 2017, reaching prices close to $20,000. Was a recently-active Skype account proof he was still alive? Likewise, the public was not much intrigued about their lives up until . When he was a 15-year-old in Belleville, Ont., Gerald Cotten was selling get-rich-quick schemes on online forums that taught him how to deceive investors and cover his tracks. A 33-YEAR-OLD man lost his life savings after getting involved with a cryptocurrency trader who died, taking the password to access funds to the grave. Cotten told a Globe and Mail reporter that the banks, which didnt trust crypto exchanges, had frozen the exchanges bank accounts. It has led the pack of other streaming giants, producing the most projects in the true-crime genre as of 2020. Quadriga Fintech Solutions was the owner and operator of QuadrigaCX, which was believed to be Canada's largest cryptocurrency exchange. 'Trust No One: The Hunt for the Crypto King' will be released sometime in 2022. He convinced tons of investors to fork over their money so he could invest it into Crypto. firms", "What happens when your bitcoin banker dies? Here's my take on Gerald Cotten and his suspicious death. There were other problems around that time. The couple were on their honeymoon in India, where Jennifer had dreams of opening an orphanage. I took out three loans from the bank and put it all into crypto. I could have put it in stocks. Their online exchange launched after the first month. Companies have backups, safeguards to protect against this kind of thing. But months later, customers still couldnt take their money out. 4 people named Gerald Betzen found in California, Texas and Massachusetts. "What Quadriga really did with the money that customers gave it to buy Bitcoin remains a mystery," according to Chainalysis. I personally believe that Cotten is not dead but I would like to hear from people who know more than me about this topic and what they think about the situation. But when co-founder Cotten died during a honeymoon in India, the money was seemingly lost forever. And, wildly, was Jennifer, his wife, even real? We pay for your stories! Then the Ontario Securities Commission opened an investigation. "I could have invested it in real estate. I put myself into a deep hole and the only way to dig out of it was to sell my house.. [50], Quadriga's lawyer, the firm Stewart McKelvey, withdrew from the case due to a potential conflict of interest. Retrieved 18 January 2022. A new Netflix true-crime documentary is tackling a bizarre story from the world of cryptocurrency. His death certificate was issued by the Indian authorities and contains an incorrect spelling of his name. His body was embalmed and sent back to Canada for a closed-casket funeral. His death was kept secret for a month by the firm before it was finally announced - and it was found he had spent millions in investors' money funding his own lavish lifestyle. Netflix's 'Trust No One: The Hunt for the Crypto King' explores the story of Gerald Cotten, founder and CEO of Canadian crypto exchange business QuadrigaCX, whose passed away unexpectedly in 2018. All that money vanished into the crypto ether and only once investigations occured did people start to think that it may have been a scam all along. The public didnt learn about the death for another 36 days, until January 2019. A computer issue wiped $14 million of Ethereum off the exchange. The shocking story has been recounted in a new Netflix documentary, Trust No One: The Hunt For The Crypto King. Some people called for Geralds body to be exhumed. You get rid of a lot of the regulations, he said on a podcast in 2014. Jilted investors in a defunct cryptocurrency company want to confirm the death of the business's founder by exhuming his remains. Gerald Cotten was the founder of one of Canada's largest cryptocurrency exchanges, Quadriga CX. The dude literally said that comment as a complete joke, and I even . He passed away in 2018 with the secret of $250 million. For instance, had Cottens death certificate, which spelled his name as Cott, , been faked? [31], Robertson filed an affidavit on behalf of the company which included a "Statement of Death" for Cotten, filed in Halifax, Nova Scotia, on 12 December 2018. The crypto entrepreneur bought increasingly lavish purchases: a $600,000 yacht, a high-end Lexus, 17 homes in Canada, a plane. Zou trusted Quadriga CX, Canada's largest cryptocurrency exchange, with C$500,000 (305,000). Cotten In 2013 was looking for a programmer to help him create a bitcoin marketplace using the account name Murdoch1337 on a BlackHat Forum and this account was last seen active in August 2019 at this point he should have been "dead" for a long time. Another "appears to have been used to receive Bitcoin from another cryptocurrency exchange account and subsequently transfer Bitcoin to the Quadriga hot wallet" on 3 December. California (2) Massachusetts (1) Texas (2) Refine Your Search Results. [3][4][5], Quadriga likely never invested the funds entrusted to it, according to Chainalysis, a cryptocurrency tracking firm. Was a recently-active Skype account proof he was still alive? Ernst & Young was able to recover $24m in cash and $9m in assets held by Robertson. A big chunk of it was given to him by his parents. Still, questions about the missing money only mounted when two. But when the banks, the law, and the. The user said that he left the company in 2016, and that the company was legitimate at the time. His wife has said she was "upset and disappointed" to learn about the extent of the fraud at her husbands company, writing in a 2019 statement, she wasnt aware or involved in Gerrys trading activities, nor his appropriation of customer funds." But even the forensic accountants only managed to trace $46 million of the total $215 million customers had deposited onto the exchange. Fake trading: I'm almost certain that he was trading with fake crypto, Chris Markay was one of the accounts that Cotten used to trade his "crypto" he also is known to have other aliases Sceptre Gerry, Aretwo Deetwo and Seethree Peaohh. Now Cottens jet-set lifestyle looked suspicious. The two first met in November 2014 and had been together for some time before tying the knot in October 2018. as well as other partner offers and accept our. Evidence of him faking death: There's lots of bizaare things that are suspicious. name was not the same as Robertsons ex-husband, some angry investors lobbed death threats at Jennifer, convinced that she had murdered Cotten, too. The young entrepreneur seemed to be at the height of his success, traveling around the world with his wife, Jennifer, and leading a jet-setting lifestyle. "[18], The company tried to raise money and list on the Canadian Securities Exchange (CSE) working with Patryn. Shortly after, the exchange stopped working entirely. It apparently had no formal accounting system. Still, all this evidence was circumstantialinvestors hadnt yet found a smoking gun. Then in January, 2019, Cottens wife Jennifer Robertson announced that he had died a month earlier. Then, the crypto millionaire suddenly died in India from complications from Crohn's disease about three years ago. He was one of the wealthiest people in the crypto world, and his company was at its pinnacle. They also found a substantial amount of money was used to fund a lavish lifestyle for the couple, including the use of private jets and luxury vehicles. Gerald 'Gerry' Cotten died in 2018, taking password to access funds with him Credit: Netflix. Forensic accountants discovered that Gerry was trading against fake users, crediting their account with fake currencies and pocketing the cash, using the proceeds to play the crypto market. goes to Cottens hospital in India to put the whole fake death thing to bed. Then Cotten took a turn for the worse: he went into cardiac arrest three times; the third time, the doctors couldnt revive him and declared him dead. Gerald Cotten is still alive (proof) I remember exactly 2 and a half weeks ago, someone on this subreddit that was jokingly talking about gerald said "Watch Quadriga say that they can't access cold wallets because Gerald died and he was the only one with access to the keys". The OSC found that after 2016, QuadrigaCX stopped producing consistent data about its holdings, and that large volumes of cryptocurrencies were being sent to foreign crypto exchanges. Further complicating the matter the company's co-founder Michael Patryn was revealed to actually be a man named Omar Dhanani, who had previously been convicted in the US of identity fraud. Stay up to date with what you want to know. When Taylor Monahan, founder of MyCrypto, examined the exchanges cold wallets, she couldnt find the lost crypto. The company's CEO and founder, Gerald William Cotten, allegedly died in 2018 after traveling to India. The documentary follows a group of Quadriga investors turned sleuths who dig into the suspicious death of Cotten and the millions of missing cryptocurrency they believe Cotten stole from them, according to a tweet from Netflix announcing the film. Customers have since struggled to regain access to their money, citing withdrawl issues and lack of communication from the company. [47], Gerald Cotten's widow has maintained that she knew nothing about her husband's activities and agreed to forfeit $12 million in assets. Cotten also took flying lessons as he appeared to be possibly preparing for a life on the run. thinks that Gerald is deadnor did he ever meet his wife. [43][44] On 13 December 2019, the court-appointed law firm representing the exchange's former users sent a letter to the RCMP asking that they exhume Cotten's body to confirm his identity and verify a cause of death. "Once I deposited it, it was basically gone.". Gerald Cotten (born 11 May 1988)[14] lived in Belleville, Ontario before attending the Schulich School of Business at York University in Toronto. No longer a likable nerd, investors thought that Gerald, now sceptre, had been operating scams since he was 15. Netflixs latest true crime documentary, Trust No One: The Hunt for the Crypto King, has arrived on the streaming platforms extensive catalog of intriguing documentaries. Cotton took with him to the grave the keys that allowed access to the digital vault containing his investors cash that they had ploughed into Quadriga CX. His body was repatriated to Canada and a funeral was held in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Then you get rid of the fees. [30], According to Jennifer Robertson, Cotten's widow, he died on 9 December 2018 while travelling in India. [45], In June 2020, the Ontario Securities Commission officially concluded that Quadriga was indeed a fraud and a Ponzi scheme. Where was the rest of the money? And for some, things still looked suspicious. More than three years after the sudden death of Quadriga CEO Gerald Cotten and the revelations that the company was a massive cryptocurrency scam, his widow, Jennifer Robertson, tells her side of the story.#Quadriga #GeraldCotten #BitcoinWatch The National live on YouTube Sunday-Friday at 9 p.m. ETSubscribe to The National: https://www.youtube.com/user/CBCTheNational?sub_confirmation=1Connect with The National online:Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/thenationalTwitter | https://twitter.com/CBCTheNationalInstagram | https://www.instagram.com/cbcthenationalMore from CBC News | https://www.cbc.ca/newsThe National is CBC's flagship nightly news program, featuring the day's top stories with in-depth and original journalism, with hosts Adrienne Arsenault and Andrew Chang in Toronto, Ian Hanomansing in Vancouver and the CBC's chief political correspondent, Rosemary Barton in Ottawa.
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