Robertson has denied any knowledge of her husband's wrongdoing - and in 2019 returned $9million to the company to repay users. firms", "What happens when your bitcoin banker dies? "At that time, there was nothing I could do. So the. [1], The company's CEO and founder, Gerald William Cotten, allegedly died in 2018 after traveling to India. Mom 'stabs 3 of her kids to death and wounds 2 others in unsupervised visit', Daughter of murdered couple linked to Delphi case reveals paranoia, Serena Williams stepmom's debts continue to spiral amid crumbling home battle, Alex Murdaugh looks unrecognizable in new mugshot hours after sentencing, 2020 THE SUN, US, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED | TERMS OF USE | PRIVACY | YOUR AD CHOICES | SITEMAP. Investors tried to pull their money from Quadriga, but sometimes faced month-long delays. 29 2022, Published 3:03 p.m. The circumstances sparked speculation from some in the crypto community that the CEO faked his death and stole his clients' money. Gerald Cotten died suddenly of Crohn's disease - or did he? Though some dont believe Mr Cotten is really gone, the money from Quadriga is. [17] In June 2017, Quadriga announced that they had lost ethereum worth US$14 million due to a smart contract error. He was one of the wealthiest people in the crypto world, and his company was at its pinnacle. Disclosure: Mathias Dpfner, CEO of Business Insider's parent company, Axel Springer, is a Netflix board member. I really prayed it wasn't a scam. Gerald Cotten, who was born on May 11th, 1988, was raised in Belleville, Ontario, before relocating to Toronto to enroll at York University's Schulich School of Business. 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. [17][20], In 2017, Bitcoin experienced a speculative frenzy rising in price from about US$1,000 to almost US$20,000. Premieres in 2022 pic.twitter.com/rP9iFJHkWm. Either the funds were never received or quickly went missing. 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? The estate includes an airplane, a sailboat, a 2017 Lexus, and real estate in Nova Scotia and Kelowna, British Columbia. Despite repeated and diligent searches, I have not been able to find them written down anywhere, she said in court filings. (India is notorious for forging fake death certificates by paying people off). Stay up to date with what you want to know. Since his death, Cotten has been recast as a habitual scammer who would enjoy the thrill of knowing he was duping his customers and investors. Cops believe that Quadriga CX was actually an wide-ranging Ponzi scheme - and Cotten would use fake accounts under the name "Chris Markay" to "buy" his customers Bitcoin using fake cash. When Quadriga CEO Gerald Cotten died suddenly in 2018, the passcodes for his cryptocurrency exchange died with him. Using a reputable custodian to hold the private keys outside the company is perhaps the best option to ensure these codes are not lost, Erik Wilgenhof Plante, the former CCO of the exchange BeQuant, told The Independent at the time. Then it emerged that Jennifer had legally changed her name three times in the past few years, and a man sharing one of her former last names was at the center of an unsolved murder case. "I could have invested it in real estate. Some 76,000 investors like Zou collectively lost out. Some people called for Geralds body to be exhumed. I'm new to this subreddit, I apologise if anything I have said breaks the rules. Cryptocurrency investors locked out of $190m after exchange founder dies, Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning. as well as other partner offers and accept our. California (2) Massachusetts (1) Texas (2) Refine Your Search Results. "[18], The company tried to raise money and list on the Canadian Securities Exchange (CSE) working with Patryn. [51], A documentary titled Dead Man's Switch: A Crypto Mystery about the story of Gerald Cotten premiered at the 2021 Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival. The accounting firm Ernst & Young, tasked with auditing the company as it undergoes bankruptcy proceedings, discovered numerous money-losing trades executed by Cotten, using customers funds. He convinced tons of investors to fork over their money so he could invest it into Crypto. [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. - Watch Full Details ! The couple were on their honeymoon in India, where Jennifer had dreams of opening an orphanage. Customers have since struggled to regain access to their money, citing withdrawl issues and lack of communication from the company. He appointed Peter Wedlake of Grant Thornton to be chief restructuring officer. She says she never received the passwords. The media dragged Gerald Cotten's wife, Jennifer Robertson, into the spotlight after his mysterious death. It has led the pack of other streaming giants, producing the most projects in the true-crime genre as of 2020. In November 2018 the case was decided with the accounts going to the court to decide the ownership individually. The teen, a bright computer enthusiast from Belleville, Ontario, ran the operation on an online forum called TalkGold . Jilted investors of Cotton's crypto firm QuadrigaCX have demanded his corpse be exhumed and tests run to confirm its his body. [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. Quadriga started by doing only local trades. Two years after Liberty Reserve was taken down, the pair launched Quadriga, though Mr Patryn left the company in 2016 over a dispute on whether to list the company publicly and claims no involvement in the resulting schemes. A computer issue wiped $14 million of Ethereum off the exchange. There's only two people who really know what happened in India. Like other crypto-exchanges, Quadriga kept its funds in so-called cold wallets, digital storage devices not connected to the internet, which are safe from hacking. There's also other posts on his Murdoch1337 account that are weird he asks for people to sell him old reddit accounts presumably because he would use these alt accounts to downvote people trying to slander his company or he would make posts on these alts saying how great Quadriga is. Thats when the. Trust No One depicts Cotten as a nerdy, happy-go-lucky, and charming CEO, who was knee-deep in Bitcoin and a fierce advocate of the technology. Cotten's sudden death in 2018 led to the disappearance of millions of dollars. 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. But the money, of course, was still missing. An official investigation concluded that Quadriga was"an old-fashioned fraud wrapped in modern technology". She had accompanied him to a hospital in Jaipur the previous day and he was diagnosed with septic shock, perforation, peritonitis, and intestinal obstruction. [7] Meanwhile, in order to manage the finances of the company during the process, a third-party monitor, Ernst & Young, was appointed. Was a recently-active Skype account proof he was still alive? [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. When Taylor Monahan, founder of MyCrypto, examined the exchanges cold wallets, she couldnt find the lost crypto. [17], In 2016, Cotten became the sole director of Quadriga when all the other directors resigned. The streaming service announced the feature alongside a slate of upcoming true-crime projects last week. Quadriga had four employees in 2015 with offices in Vancouver and Toronto, but ran out of money by June 2015. It comes as we revealed some of the world's biggest crypto scams following the case of Bitcoin tradersRaees Cajee, 21 and Ameer, 18,who fledSouth Africa after allegedly pocketing 2.5billion. [32] It also stated that Quadriga has 363,000 registered users and a sum of C$250 million is owed to 115,000 affected users. 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. [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. "You appear dead for a few days, until you get the cure," the source said. Gerald 'Gerry' Cotten died in 2018, taking password to access funds with him Credit: Netflix. The teen, a bright computer enthusiast from Belleville, Ontario, ran the operation on an online forum called TalkGold, and promised his investors inconceivable returns of up to 150 per cent in two days. thinks that Gerald is deadnor did he ever meet his wife. , initially diagnosed Cotten with little more than travelers diahrrea, but kept him in hospital just in case. Then, the crypto millionaire suddenly died in India from complications from Crohn's disease about three years ago. Soon enough, QuadrigaCXs customers struggled to withdraw money from the exchange. Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in, Investors are still hunting for millions in vanished cryptocurrencies, writes Josh Marcus, Find your bookmarks in your Independent Premium section, under my profile. The thing about conspiracy theories, though, is that they mutate out of control very quickly, and arent always reflective of the latest evidence. We pay for your stories! Here's my take on Gerald Cotten and his suspicious death. He would grow up to be a cryptocurrency entrepreneur and run Canadas largest crypto exchange, QuadrigaCX, before dying under bizarre circumstances in 2018, leaving investors looking for a missing $180 million Canadian dollars. Did he Die? Things began to sour, however, in 2018, when the price of Bitcoin collapsed. Ernst & Young was able to recover $24m in cash and $9m in assets held by Robertson. We just send money from our Bitcoin app directly to those paper wallets, and keep it safe that way. In that case, $851 million entrusted to Crypto Capital had been "lost, stolen or absconded with", according to the suit. Mar. He first encountered Bitcoin in Vancouver, British . https://bit.ly/3cAIH4j Newest Vid's https:. [54], A 2021 8-episode podcast entitled Exit Scam followed the buildup of Quadriga, and investigated whether Gerald Cotten had faked his own death. [42] Another three empty wallets were believed to possibly be owned by Quadriga. Since his death, Cotten has been recast as a habitual scammer who would enjoy the thrill of knowing he was duping his customers and investors. It just wasnt there. Gerald 'Gerry' Cotten | FAKE Behind 'Hunt For The Crypto King' Netflix | Where Are They Now?Subscribe Here! 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. Gerald Cleophas Betzen, 68. Gerald and Jennifer kept most of their relationship away from the public. You get rid of a lot of the regulations, he said on a podcast in 2014. November 28, 2022 by Nurudeen. Here Is Why People Think Gerald Cotten Is Still Alive. Directed by Luke Sewell, the original Netflix documentary Trust No One: The Hunt for the Crypto King follows a group of cryptocurrency investors hired to investigate the death of exchange founder Gerry Cotten and the alleged $250 million that he stole from them. 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. [17] In a 2014 interview, founder Gerald Cotten explained that the company stored customer funds on paper wallets in safe deposit boxes: "So we just send money to them, we dont need to go back to the bank every time we want to put money into it. Miller Thomson LLP sent a letter to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police on Friday, requesting authorities conduct an exhumation and postmortem autopsy on the body of Gerald Cotten, founder of QuadrigaCX, citing what the firm called the questionable circumstances around his death earlier this year. 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". Access your favorite topics in a personalized feed while you're on the go. Gerald Cotten is allegedly meant to have died from Crohns disease after the exchange crashed. "[46] The Official Ontario Securities report on Quadriga is attached here. The two first met in November 2014 and had been together for some time before tying the knot in October 2018. Lived In Los Angeles CA, Austin TX, Van Nuys CA . It left Robertson the entire C$9.6-million estate and named her as the trustee. No longer a likable nerd, investors thought that Gerald, now sceptre, had been operating scams since he was 15. I put myself into a deep hole and the only way to dig out of it was to sell my house.. He was 30-years-old at the time of his death. But Cotten was a bad trader: losing money hand over fist, he gambled away about $150 million of customer funds. [38][39], According to some of Cotten's family members, there was a crypto "Dead man's switch" that would provide Quadriga with operating information in the event of his death; however, "neither the monitor nor others involved with the organization are aware of a dead-man switch email having been received. [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. Gerald Cotten was the talk of the cryptocurrency world in Canada after he introduced QuadrigaCX, a place where investors could buy and sell cryptocurrency. Then the Ontario Securities Commission opened an investigation. It is highly unusual for only a single executive to be the one with access to a company's fund, further muddying the waters around what happened to Cotten. Sign up for our newsletter for the latest tech news and scoops delivered daily to your inbox. The 33-year-old has attempted to get his money back in a lawsuit, but hasn't had any luck as yet.

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