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. It's clear to me that Cotten gave himself millions of dollars worth of crypto as the owner to trade people fake crypto and give himself millions of dollars. Gerald 'Gerry' Cotten died in 2018, taking password to access funds with him Credit: Netflix. [53], A Netflix documentary titled Trust No One: The Hunt for the Crypto King about the story of Gerald Cotten was released in March 2022. His body was repatriated to Canada and a funeral was held in Halifax, Nova Scotia. [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. But Cotten was a bad trader: losing money hand over fist, he gambled away about $150 million of customer funds. 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." did gerry and his wife fake his passing and steal the money? Facebook / Remembering Gerry Cotten In the weeks since Quadriga Fintech Solutions Corp. belatedly made his death public, the exchange's furious users have raised questions. Robertson has denied any knowledge of her husband's wrongdoing - and in 2019 returned $9million to the company to repay users. "I couldn't get any sleep. Netflixs latest true crime doc, "Trust No One: The Hunt for the Crypto King",seeks to unravel the mystery of Gerald Cotten, the CEO of crypto exchange QuadrigaCX, who died in 2018. But, due to the strict security of crypto, we may never know. He was 30-years-old. Photo by Gaetano Cessati on Unsplash. #GeraldCottenReallyDead #GeraldCottenStillAliveGerald Cotten Really Dead ? Then the Ontario Securities Commission opened an investigation. Where was the rest of the money? The OSC. 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". Even today, some investors remain unconvinced that Cotten really is dead. Jilted investors of Cotton's crypto firm QuadrigaCX have demanded his corpse be exhumed and tests run to confirm its his body. In that case, $851 million entrusted to Crypto Capital had been "lost, stolen or absconded with", according to the suit. Lived In Los Angeles CA, Austin TX, Van Nuys CA . The Netflix documentary will follow investors-turned-investigators looking into theories on the founder's sudden death. 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. Up to C$250 million (US$190 million) in cryptocurrency owed to 115,000 customers was missing[2] or could not be accessed because only Cotten held the password to off-line cold wallets. The business was run from Cotten's encrypted laptop from Cotten's home in Fall River, Nova Scotia. After some more digging, the reporter found an order form filled out by one Gerald Cotten. Thats when the Globe started to be convinced that he was dead, after all. 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. Have something to tell us about this article? Overcast with rain showers at times. 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. Browse Locations. Citing decomposition concerns, lawyers requested the exhumation be completed no later than spring 2020. The user said that he left the company in 2016, and that the company was legitimate at the time. But when co-founder Cotten died during a honeymoon in India, the money was seemingly lost forever. On 10 December, a death certificate was issued by the local municipality as well as a "no objection certificate" from the police to return the body to Nova Scotia. One of the. 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. About C$1.2 billion worth of bitcoin was exchanged on Quadriga. He graduated from York with a bachelor of business administration in 2010. But the mingling didnt end there: the crypto kingpin also allegedly mixed client money with his own, according to investigators, funding the lavish lifestyle he became known for. At this point, lots of investors think that Cotten, a man alleged to have a history of scamming, really had faked his own death. And not even he thinks that Gerald is deadnor did he ever meet his wife. Investors tried to pull their money from Quadriga, but sometimes faced month-long delays. [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. Still, all this evidence was circumstantialinvestors hadnt yet found a smoking gun. 4 people named Gerald Betzen found in California, Texas and Massachusetts. Netflix announced an upcoming documentary about the Quadriga Bitcoin saga and the death of CEO Gerald Cotten. 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. Sign up for notifications from Insider! No longer a likable nerd, investors thought that Gerald, now sceptre, had been operating scams since he was 15. But Bitcoin crashed at the end of 2018, and Cottens flashy lifestyle needed cash to sustain itself. https://bit.ly/3cAIH4j Newest Vid's https:. There's a small chance that someone was investigating his old accounts and that they accessed his BlackHat but it's very unlikely. His body was repatriated to . Mr Patryn pled guilty in 2005 to working in an identity fraud ring, and did business under a company called Midas Gold as an intermediary with Liberty Reserve, a Costa Rican digital currency firm busted as one of the largest money laundering operations in history. Sign up for our newsletter for the latest tech news and scoops delivered daily to your inbox. November 28, 2022 by Nurudeen. [34][35], On 14 January 2019,[36] 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. He appointed Peter Wedlake of Grant Thornton to be chief restructuring officer. His body was embalmed and sent back to Canada for a closed-casket funeral. Still, questions about the missing money only mounted when two. Customers reported that once they arrived, there was nobody in the office, or that there was no cash to be disbursed. 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. [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. There was no way of getting my money back. Quadriga had four employees in 2015 with offices in Vancouver and Toronto, but ran out of money by June 2015. The crypto entrepreneur bought increasingly lavish purchases: a $600,000 yacht, a high-end Lexus, 17 homes in Canada, a plane. And meanwhile, Dead Man's Switch director Sheona McDonald said: "There's only two people who really know what happened in India.". 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. A big chunk of it was given to him by his parents. And, wildly, was Jennifer, his wife, even real? I could have put it in stocks. [52], The CBC released a 6-episode podcast about Quadriga and the death of its founder called A Death in Cryptoland. I didnt know that Gerry was married, he says. 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. Still, questions about the missing money only mounted when two Globe and Mail reporters followed up on the case. Access your favorite topics in a personalized feed while you're on the go. [54], A 2021 8-episode podcast entitled Exit Scam followed the buildup of Quadriga, and investigated whether Gerald Cotten had faked his own death. Gerald Cotten, the founder of QuadrigaCX, was thought to have had sole access to the funds and coins exchanged on it. 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. 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. For instance, had Cottens death certificate, which spelled his name as Cottan, been faked? Both Canadas tax authorities and the FBI are also investigating the company. Business picked up when Bitcoin hit the big time in 2017, reaching prices close to $20,000. lets break it all down. Cotten encrypted and stored about $190 million worth of his customers' Bitcoin caches and held sole responsibility for the passwords needed to access those funds. A Canadian bank froze another $21 million of funds. He and his wife, Jennifer Robertson, jetted all over the world on private planes, visiting chic locales in Paris, Hawaii, and Morocco. "At that point, we were desperate to recover funds and we were also convinced that a scam was underway," said QCX-INT, an individual who uncovered online documentation of Mr Cottens history of fraudulent behaviour, speaking anonymously to the CBC this year. Cryptocurrency investors locked out of $190m after exchange founder dies, Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning. Like many in the industry, he framed his enterprise not merely as a financial tool, but a radical societal change, touting the crypto gospel in podcast appearances and videos on YouTube. The dude literally said that comment as a complete joke, and I even . At first, the now-closed company allegedly blamed the delay on a legal issue with a bank. Either the funds were never received or quickly went missing. Image Credit: CTV Your Morning/YouTube. [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. 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. Netflix has seen a boom with its true-crime docuseries, from 'Tiger King' to 'Making a Murderer.' Netflix has tried to get to the bottom of things in its new 90-minute doc; read on to uncover the wild tale of Gerald Cotten. The doctor, reported the Globe, initially diagnosed Cotten with little more than travelers diahrrea, but kept him in hospital just in case. [19] Other than a few contractors, it had no employees, offices or bank accounts thereafter. The circumstances sparked speculation from some in the crypto community that the CEO faked his death and stole his clients' money. 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. 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. And with the mystery of Quadriga still being unraveled by the Feds, Mounties, amateur sleuths and investigative journalists - the question remains what happened to Cotten? Now . He was 30-years-old at the time of his death. Furious investors continue to fight a legal battle to try and have Cotten's body exhumed as they believe his death was a cut and run scam. Cotten was young, energetic, passionate about cryptocurrency so when. Its the swindler story you havent heard of until now. at the time Canadas largest cryptocurrency exchange, Gerald Cotten, 30, died in questionable circumstances, Canadian company founder took crucial password to the grave. [15] He learned about Bitcoin in Toronto and travelled to Vancouver, British Columbia, where he founded Quadriga in November 2013 with Michael Patryn. And why did the Indian hospital that treated Cotten misspell his name on his death certificate? pic.twitter.com/rGymJ5f9Or. Fourteen trading accounts that were also examined were used to trade on other exchanges. I'm new to this subreddit, I apologise if anything I have said breaks the rules. X-rays. 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. So his spiral down into a life of crime was either pure greed or him seeking the thrill. Many believe that Cotten faked his death, however, as part of an exit scam to get away with stealing millions from Quadrigas customers. Zou trusted Quadriga CX, Canada's largest cryptocurrency exchange, with C$500,000 (305,000). [21], Throughout 2018, as Bitcoin prices crashed, customers of the exchange reported delays when attempting to withdraw dollars. Finally, the OSC discovered something that cracked the case wide open. We pay for your stories! The thing about conspiracy theories, though, is that they mutate out of control very quickly, and arent always reflective of the latest evidence. He first encountered Bitcoin in Vancouver, British . 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. "It did become an obsession.. [28], Quadriga used an unusual teller-window system for customers to withdraw their money. 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. 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. Netflix Special on Bitcoin Fraudster Gerald Cotten, His Wife, and QuadrigaCX. 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. Thats when the. 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. But pour in it did. The mystery of Cotten and Quadriga is now the subject of podcasts Exit Scam and A Death In Cryptoland. [33] Aaron Matthews served as Director of Operations. Jennifer, scared for her safety, entered a safe house. Despite presenting himself as mild mannered and clean cut, Cotten was found to have had a history of carrying out financial cons - starting when he was just a teenager. So the. , and found an affidavit from Robertson saying that she didnt understand how QuadrigaCX operatedeven though one of Robertsons companies later wired cash to some of Quadrigas customers. Was Patryn, whom employees described as a macho, terrifying character, calling the shots, not Cotten? "So far, nothing's been found. Jennifer RobertsonGerry Cotten,. Evidence of him faking death: There's lots of bizaare things that are suspicious. , initially diagnosed Cotten with little more than travelers diahrrea, but kept him in hospital just in case. We just send money from our Bitcoin app directly to those paper wallets, and keep it safe that way. 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. A bitcoin mining operation in Saint Hyacinthe, Quebec. "[40][41], Ernst & Young found five Quadriga cold wallet addresses, but they were empty, containing no cryptocurrency since April 2018. Indeed, QuadrigaCX launched just three months after sceptre put out a call to build a crypto exchange. One source in the doco goes as far as to claim Cotton may have used a substance known as "Haitian zombie powder" to fake his death. Then, out of the blue, one Mike Patryn joined the Telegram group that investors were using to discuss conspiracies. Angry and suspicious investors congregated on Reddit and Telegram to try to get to the bottom of the mystery. Supposedly, Cottens business associates didnt even know he was married. They reported that Jennifer said she couldnt get into Cottens laptops, and found an affidavit from Robertson saying that she didnt understand how QuadrigaCX operatedeven though one of Robertsons companies later wired cash to some of Quadrigas customers. My sisters not a liar.. I took out three loans from the bank and put it all into crypto. NOW WATCH: Netflix is headed for a huge profit milestone in 2018, Personal Finance Insider's picks for best cryptocurrency exchanges. But when co-founder Cotten died during a honeymoon in India, the money was seemingly lost forever. Reported by Fansided, Globe and Mail journalist Nathan Vanderklippe spoke to Dr. Sharma, who dealt with Cotten when he came into the hospital. In other news, Attack on Titan Season 4 Part 4 to release Fall 2023, confirms new trailer, Trust No One: The Hunt for the Crypto King | Official Trailer | Netflix, https://i.ytimg.com/vi/vW2BPQ15OSw/hqdefault.jpg. [42] Another three empty wallets were believed to possibly be owned by Quadriga. Bankruptcy trustees have managed to recover around $34million from Quadriga and $12million in assests from Cotten's estate - but the rest remains locked away in the digital world of crypto. Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in, Please refresh your browser to be logged in, A lost password, a sudden death and $180M in missing crypto, Extra 20% off selected fashion and sportswear at Very, Up to 20% off & extra perks with Booking.com Genius Membership, 50 cash with friend referrals at Virgin Mobile, 15% off extra plans with this Vodafone promo, Compare broadband packages side by side to find the best deal for you, Compare cheap broadband deals from providers with fastest speed in your area, All you need to know about fibre broadband, Best Apple iPhone Deals in the UK March 2023, Compare iPhone contract deals and get the best offer this March, Compare the best mobile phone deals from the top networks and brands. "[46] The Official Ontario Securities report on Quadriga is attached here. Here's my take on Gerald Cotten and his suspicious death. The investors found more questions than answers. Cotton's sudden death from complications of Crohn's disease aged 30 shocked the crypto world - but many believe he may have faked his death in an elaborate "exit scam". 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. [17][20], In 2017, Bitcoin experienced a speculative frenzy rising in price from about US$1,000 to almost US$20,000. All Filters. 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? He launched QuadrigaCX in 2013, and it quickly became one of the largest crypto exchanges. 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. Netflix announced an upcoming documentary about the Quadriga Bitcoin saga and the death of CEO Gerald Cotten. An official investigation concluded that Quadriga was"an old-fashioned fraud wrapped in modern technology". ET. But even the forensic accountants only managed to trace $46 million of the total $215 million customers had deposited onto the exchange. 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. [16] In 2014 only C$7.4 million worth of bitcoin were exchanged on Quadriga. Gerald 'Gerry' Cotten | FAKE Behind 'Hunt For The Crypto King' Netflix | Where Are They Now?Subscribe Here! Tong Zou is one of thousands of customers left seriously out of pocket following Gerald 'Gerry' Cotten's mysterious death in 2018 at the age of 30. 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. 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.
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