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Regarding this point, we are considering our next steps.” According to the Halifax Chronicle Herald the company released documents in mid-January 2019, that showed he died «suddenly» at a private hospital in Jaipur, India. Cotten had written a new will in late November 2018, approximately two weeks before his death. His wife Jennifer Robertson, accompanied Cotten to the hospital on December 8, 2018, when he experienced a crisis in his ongoing battle with Crohn’s disease. In spite of the hospital’s efforts, he went through a septic shock and had several cardiac arrests, dying, finally, on December 9, 2018.
In that case, $851 million entrusted to Crypto Capital had been «lost, stolen or absconded with», according to the suit. After Gerry died, no autopsy was conducted, and the body was sent back to the hotel. There Bitcoin Bloodbath Sees Cryptocurrency Markets Tumble was some confusion regarding the embalming process because initially, the embalmer didn’t accept the body. Then, Gerry’s body was sent to a local medical college, where the embalming certificate was issued.
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‘I didn’t need to see such things live’ – Prince Harry revealed that he shouldn’t have Googled his wife’s… His death certificate issued by Indian authorities has the incorrect spelling of his name. He – and other investors – have been critical of the Canadian authorities for what they claim is a lack of investigation. ‘He couldn’t control himself, by the looks of things, and blew just an absolutely eye-popping amount of money,’ QCX-INT told the podcast. Investigations by the Canada’s Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the FBI are ongoing after investors raised concerns about the mysterious timing of Cotten’s death. Find the latest Bollywood News and Celebrity Gossips from Latest In Bollywood.
In the early 2000s, he met Patryn, who was six years older and has a mysterious past. According to Vanity Fair, Patryn was arrested in Southern California, where he lived with his family, and pleaded guilty to conspiring to transfer stolen identity documents. He was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison before being deported to Canada in 2007. “I had no direct knowledge of how Gerry operated the business prior to his death, and was not aware of his improper actions,” she said through a statement to CBC.
His widow, Jennifer Robertson, has said in court documents that Cotten was the only person with access to his laptop, which is thought to contain the digital keys to the so-called cold wallets containing the missing cryptocurrency. However, Gerry’s death was not declared for more than a month, and during that time, it was business as usual for QuadrigaCX. Once it was public knowledge, customers who tried to withdraw their funds from the platform could not do so.
The continued mystery of QuadrigaCX’s Gerald Cotten’s death and loss of millions in crypto
Cotten’s kitchen counter, displaying cash that was delivered to him by a Bitcoin ATM company. Small said people were bringing duffel Bitcoin Stops Just Short Of $50,000 bags of cash to the home Cotten and Robertson shared. She wonders why Robertson didn’t think to question what was going on.
A report by auditor Ernst & Young also found funds were transferred to Cotten personally and to other parties. At the time of his passing, he had over CA$250 million [$200 million] and the passwords to Quadriga’s accounts. According to the Netflix documentary, at least 110,000 customers were affected. According to an investigation by Canada’s Globe and Mail, Cotten died from complications related to Crohn’s Disease and Robertson returned to Canada with his body. Before arriving in Jaipur, Cotten and Robertson had already traveled to some of India’s biggest tourist destinations, including the Taj Mahal and Varanasi. According to VanderKlippe’s reporting, they planned to stay in Jaipur for four days.
Canadian Bitcoin investor who ‘died’ left $137M of customers’ money in limbo
Speculation quickly spread that Cotten had faked his death and emptied out the Quadriga piggy bank. Another irregularity was the fact that only he had complete access to the company’s funds. It has since been revealed that Cotten would use fake accounts under the alias “Chris Markay” to make fake Bitcoin purchases for his clients. Accounting firm Ernst and Young says he would then use this crypto to make investments elsewhere for himself. The recent disappearance of South African brothers Ameer and Raees Cajee of Africrypt exchange with 69,000 BTC is just one of many crypto “exit scams”. As can be expected, the increase in mainstream interest in digital assets has brought with it scammers hoping to profit off the naive and in some cases, the not-so-naive.
- The widow of the man behind what was once Canada’s largest cryptocurrency exchange is finally sharing her side of the story after his sudden death three years ago.
- It has since been revealed that Cotten would use fake accounts under the alias “Chris Markay” to make fake Bitcoin purchases for his clients.
- Investigations are still ongoing, with calls to exhume his body still yet to clear the legal process.
- It is a priority for CBC to create a website that is accessible to all Canadians including people with visual, hearing, motor and cognitive challenges.
We explain who Gerald Cotten is, the subject of this documentary, and reveal where he is now, including the mystery surrounding his downfall. «Bitcoin investors face long delays cashing out, criticize two B.C. firms». » ‘I just want my money back.’ Couple had $100K wire stuck for months after trying to buy Bitcoin». The CBC released a 6-episode podcast about Quadriga and the death of its founder called A Death in Cryptoland. 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.
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On 14 January 2019, Quadriga announced that their CEO, Gerald Cotten, had died the month prior from Crohn’s disease while doing volunteer work at an orphanage in India. 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. According to an affidavit by the CEO’s widow, approximately 115,000 customers are owed C$250 million (US$190 million), most of which was cryptocurrency held in Quadriga’s cold wallet in the laptop that only the deceased CEO had access to. 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. One of the most notorious apparent “exit scams” was the collapse of Canadian exchange QuadrigaCX.
Others speculated the businessman had faked his own death, and investors began calling for his body to be exhumed. Then Gerald Cotten suddenly died, in December of 2018, from complications with Crohn’s disease. The couple were on their honeymoon in India, where Jennifer had dreams of opening an orphanage. The death wasn’t announced until a month and a half later, in January 2019.
After his death, investigators discovered he used the money as his own personal slush fund. After waiting a month to announce his death, the company revealed Cotten was the only person with access to passwords for the digital wallets holding roughly $135 million. To add credence to the theory that he faked his own death and is still alive, Bloomberg reported that the crypto exchange founder filed his will just 12 days before he apparently died. Some Reddit users have suggested that Cotten faked his own death in order to defraud customers through an exit scam, while others believe that Cotten’s death exposed a Ponzi scheme. 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.
Gerald Cotten’s Wife, Children
Ms Zegel, the estate lawyer, said the case should be a cautionary tale for those getting invovled with financial products like crypto that they don’t understand. The FBI and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police are still ostensibly investigating the lost crypto, though there hasn’t been a break in the case in years. For Robertson, the experience of thinking she knew the man she loved, only to learn about a vast, all-consuming lie, was one that broke her. Tong Zou, 33, lost his life savings on Quadriga, including a $200,000 gift from his parents, as he describes in the Netflix film. During the good years, the couple seemed to have it all — and then some. They bought a $600,000 yacht, a high-end Lexus, 17 homes and a private plane, all while jet-setting between Paris, Hawai’i and Morocco.
Medical experts told The Globe and Mail that Cotten’s symptoms and rapid decline suggest he had a perforated bowel, which can cause extremely sudden death. But no autopsy was performed on Cotten’s body, so nobody can be sure why, exactly, he died — a fact that’s encouraged conspiracy theorists who believe that Robertson poisoned her husband or that he’s not dead at all. In December 2019, investors were clamoring for Cotten’s body to be exhumed in order to verify the cause of death. According to postmortem findings by auditor Ernst & Young, Cotten used fake accounts on his own exchange to buy customers’ bitcoin using Canadian dollars that didn’t exist, and then moved those stolen tokens to take risky bets on other exchanges.
Cotten’s wife has also said she had no knowledge of her late husband’s dealings. After his death, Gerald was the only one who have the access to funds but unfortunately, after his death, the password was also gone in his grave. A tragedy was caused in 2018 when one of the biggest money mismanagement in the history of Canada caused people to lose a huge amount of $ 215 million. Electric vehicles and artificial intelligence featured at CES 2023, no House Speaker means no Congressional business, Samsung’s poor performance may have implications for Apple, and other news to start your day. Retail gold buying in major Asian hubs was slow on higher prices at the start of the week, while demand was seen picking up in top consumer China on the back of reopening and upcoming Lunar New Year festival. With China days away from lifting border controls, traders expect gold demand to improve as the country welcomes travellers after being shut from the rest of the world for three years.
Under the terms of the dissolution of the company, she gave up all her assets beside $90,000 in cash, $20,000 in retirement, her car, and her wedding band. Gerry had mixed the rest of their estate in with the funds of the company and its customers. The company didn’t even have an official bank account, processing payments through third parties or Cotten’s own laptop. The Will Other Companies Follow Tesla Cottens’ home was filled with piles and piles of loose cash, which Gerry claimed was a consequence of supposedly discriminatory banks who didn’t yet understand crypto and refused to work with them. They also learned that the businessman had started scamming people online at age 15, and had ties to Midas Gold, a business linked to a Costa Rican money laundering operation.