[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. Then in January, 2019, Cottens wife Jennifer Robertson announced that he had died a month earlier. Check out: Personal Finance Insider's picks for best cryptocurrency exchanges. Neither Costodian or Quadriga could access the funds. , one of the co-founders, registered the domain name for QuadrigaCXnot Gerry. 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. Gerald Cotten died suddenly of Crohn's disease - or did he? Gerald Cotten. Business picked up when Bitcoin hit the big time in 2017, reaching prices close to $20,000. But, due to the strict security of crypto, we may never know. X-rays. Where was the rest of the money? We explain who Gerald Cotten is, the subject of this documentary, and reveal where he is now, including the mystery surrounding his downfall. The sudden death of Gerald Cotten in December 2018 plunged the world of cryptocurrency into chaos. The 33-year-old has attempted to get his money back in a lawsuit, but hasn't had any luck as yet. And meanwhile, Dead Man's Switch director Sheona McDonald said: "There's only two people who really know what happened in India.". 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. 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. "Once I deposited it, it was basically gone.". Cotten told a Globe and Mail reporter that the banks, which didnt trust crypto exchanges, had frozen the exchanges bank accounts. 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. Even today, some investors remain unconvinced that Cotten really is dead. [3][4][5], Quadriga likely never invested the funds entrusted to it, according to Chainalysis, a cryptocurrency tracking firm. 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. A new Netflix true-crime documentary is tackling a bizarre story from the world of cryptocurrency. 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. It apparently had no formal accounting system. It sucks.". His death left investors locked out of their money and left Jennifer Robertson, Gerry's wife . 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. There's a small chance that someone was investigating his old accounts and that they accessed his BlackHat but it's very unlikely. Citing decomposition concerns, lawyers requested the exhumation be completed no later than spring 2020. Investors who believed that Cotten had faked his own death and ran away with the money had made one huge assumption: that Cotten had money to steal. And, wildly, was Jennifer, his wife, even real? Do you have a story for The Sun Online Tech & Science team? 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. 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. [42], Quadriga continued to accept deposits until 26 January. Its pretty much money by people for people.. lets break it all down. 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. After some more digging, the reporter found an order form filled out by one Gerald Cotten. 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. According to the documentary, thats around the time that Cotten started to invest his money in islands, cars and property, traveling the world while running his exchange. So his spiral down into a life of crime was either pure greed or him seeking the thrill. 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. Gerald Cotten (born 11 May 1988)[14] lived in Belleville, Ontario before attending the Schulich School of Business at York University in Toronto. Netflix has tried to get to the bottom of things in its, Trust No One depicts Cotten as a nerdy, happy-go-lucky, and charming CEO, who was knee-deep in, reporter that the banks, which didnt trust crypto exchanges, had, The investors found more questions than answers. [11] Lawyers for the customers of the exchange have asked that Cotten's body be exhumed.[12]. Soon enough, QuadrigaCXs customers struggled to withdraw money from the exchange. So, Patryn: shit-stirrer, criminal mastermind or another one beguiled by Cotten? [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. Many believe that Cotten faked his death, however, as part of an exit scam to get away with stealing millions from Quadrigas customers. [2], In January 2019 Ernst & Young reported that Quadriga did not have a bank account, but instead used third-party payment processors. Here's my take on Gerald Cotten and his suspicious death. His will was signed off just two weeks before he and wife Jennifer Robertson travelled to India on their honeymoon. He passed away in 2018 with the secret of $250 million. Lived In Los Angeles CA, Austin TX, Van Nuys CA . reporters had a hunch that this was Gerry Cotten, and traced the account to another online den of thieves, BlackHatWorld. 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. 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. 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. 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. #GeraldCottenReallyDead #GeraldCottenStillAliveGerald Cotten Really Dead ? firms", "What happens when your bitcoin banker dies? And not even he thinks that Gerald is deadnor did he ever meet his wife. https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/hiring-a-programmer-website-like-bitstamp-bitcoin-trading-project.605236/. [17][29] Bloomberg also identified Patryn as Dhanani, showing that he had officially changed his name from Omar Dhanani to Omar Patryn in British Columbia in March 2003 and changed it again to Michael Patryn in October 2008. Gerald Cleophas Betzen, 68. 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. [21], Throughout 2018, as Bitcoin prices crashed, customers of the exchange reported delays when attempting to withdraw dollars. However, in 2018, Bitcoin prices crashed and many began withdrawing their funds from Quadriga, except they were being met with error messages before the exchanges website stopped working in 2019. 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. Their online exchange launched after the first month. [19] Other than a few contractors, it had no employees, offices or bank accounts thereafter. Subsequent investigations found that Michael Patryn, one of the co-founders, registered the domain name for QuadrigaCXnot Gerry. Customers have since struggled to regain access to their money, citing withdrawl issues and lack of communication from the company. That same month, Quadriga filed for creditor protection, and scores of angry investors began furiously questioning where their money went, even though only Mr Cotten knew the keys to the companys crypto vault and never set up a dead mans trigger to send them elsewhere in case he was incapacitated. Gerald and Jennifer kept most of their relationship away from the public. "It just makes me more depressed about it," Zou told Sky News. 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. (Neither men were charged in connection with Liberty Reserve). Zou trusted Quadriga CX, Canada's largest cryptocurrency exchange, with C$500,000 (305,000). 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. 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. It has led the pack of other streaming giants, producing the most projects in the true-crime genre as of 2020. [17][20], In 2017, Bitcoin experienced a speculative frenzy rising in price from about US$1,000 to almost US$20,000. Then, as their accounts accumulated hundreds of millions of dollars, Gerald passed unexpectedly, taking the passwords to the accounts to his grave. His death certificate was issued by the Indian authorities and contains an incorrect spelling of his name. Trust No One: The Hunt for the Crypto King is now streaming on Netflix. In December of 2018, the jet-setting crypto couple headed to India for their honeymoon, where Mr Cotten died of complications from Crohns disease, 12 days after modifying his will. [24][25][26], According to court filings, Quadriga also used WB21 as a payment processor. And for some, things still looked suspicious. Gerald Cotten is a bitcoin millionaire from Canada whose death, supposedly from complications relating to Crohn's disease, is now being questioned. Investors tried to pull their money from Quadriga, but sometimes faced month-long delays. At first, the now-closed company allegedly blamed the delay on a legal issue with a bank. April 2, 2022 Netflix Nobody was expecting Gerald Cotten, the CEO of Canadian Bitcoin exchange QuadrigaCX, to die at 30. Did Cotten fake his own death, investors began to ask, absconding to lands anew under a new name and a surgically rejigged face? 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. It certainly started to look like fraud, said one anonymous investor in the doc. 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 podcast was reported by Aaron Lammer and Lane Brown.[55]. "[18], The company tried to raise money and list on the Canadian Securities Exchange (CSE) working with Patryn. 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. Cotten's widow has rarely spoken publicly, but in an affidavit has described herself as being subject to "slanderous comments" over accusations her husband faked his death. Exit Scam host Aaron Lammer told CoinDesk: "My read was that, on some level, Gerry was addicted to scamming, "Addicted to stealing peoples money. The public didnt learn about the death for another 36 days, until January 2019. Fifteen years later, Mr Cotten, known as Gerry, would be accused of swindling people online of a much bigger prize. A big chunk of it was given to him by his parents. It just wasnt there. 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 was 15 when he ran his first documented get-rich-quick scheme. 4 people named Gerald Betzen found in California, Texas and Massachusetts. Everyone knows the story about the now-defunct QuadrigaCX . TRUST NO ONE: THE HUNT FOR THE CRYPTO KINGFollow a group of investors turned sleuths as they try to unlock the suspicious death of cryptocurrency multimillionaire Gerry Cotten and the missing $250 million they believe he stole from them. But when co-founder Cotten died during a honeymoon in India, the money was seemingly lost forever. An official investigation concluded that Quadriga was"an old-fashioned fraud wrapped in modern technology". [16] In 2014 only C$7.4 million worth of bitcoin were exchanged on Quadriga. Fourteen trading accounts that were also examined were used to trade on other exchanges. [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. He is believed to have scooped around around $115million in crypto from his own accounts and put them into high risk financial bets - many of which crashed, costing him more money than Quadriga ever actually made. Where was the rest of the money? Zou trusted Quadriga CX, Canada's largest cryptocurrency exchange, with C$500,000 (305,000). The only catch: only Gerry knew the passwords to the companys crypto-vaults. 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. You transferred them $1,000 and you could see the crypto in your account. We explain how to spot them. Was a recently-active Skype account proof he was still alive? But Cotten was a bad trader: losing money hand over fist, he gambled away about $150 million of customer funds. "So far, nothing's been found. Like the end of a classic Ponzi, the OSC said that due to Cottens bad trades, QuadrigaCX couldnt afford to credit customers who withdrew funds. 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? Photo by Gaetano Cessati on Unsplash. Quadriga's customers are owed C$260 million in cryptocurrency and cash. A big chunk of it was given to him by his parents. Gerald Cotten. I took out three loans from the bank and put it all into crypto. Jennifer Robertson, the widow of QuadrigaCX founder Gerald (Gerry) Cotten, will be allowed to keep more than $90,000 cash and a Jeep Cherokee in a settlement agreement with the company's bankruptcy trustee. The couple were on their honeymoon in India, where Jennifer had dreams of opening an orphanage. 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. Some also believe that Gerald isnt even dead at all but rather hiding away with the hundreds of millions of dollars he controlled. Something was afoot. The investors found more questions than answers. At this point, lots of investors think that Cotten, a man alleged to have a history of scamming, really had faked his own death. "I could have invested it in real estate. 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. Here's a link to the BlackHat forum. [48], On 5 February 2019, Nova Scotia Supreme Court Justice Michael J. Browse Locations. [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. The dude literally said that comment as a complete joke, and I even . We pay for your stories! The doctor, reported the Globe, initially diagnosed Cotten with little more than travelers diahrrea, but kept him in hospital just in case. 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. Resides in Beverly Hills, CA. 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. He appointed his wife as the executor of his estate, handing over a $9million real estate empire, his yacht and his Cessna plane - and he even left his two dogs an inheritance of $100,000. Some people called for Geralds body to be exhumed. 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. Dhanani also had pleaded guilty to burglary and grand theft charges and had been deported to Canada. Sign up for our newsletter for the latest tech news and scoops delivered daily to your inbox. The company's CEO and founder, Gerald William Cotten, allegedly died in 2018 after traveling to India. Did he Die? The two first met in November 2014 and had been together for some time before tying the knot in October 2018. Living a jet set life, he cruised the world on yachts, flew in private jets and investigators even released photos of piles of cash on his kitchen table. that after 2016, QuadrigaCX stopped producing consistent data about its holdings, and that large volumes of cryptocurrencies were being sent to foreign crypto exchanges. #GeraldCotten #QuadrigaCX #Netflix #truecrime #wherearetheynow #gerrycotten #crypto #fraud #docuseries #truestory #biography #whathappenedto ------------------------------------IN THIS VIDEO:Sierra Walker ------------------------------------PRODUCER \u0026 FILMED BY:Chris Stiuso------------------------------------VIDEO EDITED BY:Brianna Raakman: https://www.instagram.com/brianna_raakman/ A NEW documentary on rogue crypto trader Gerald Cotton, who took up to $215million in Bitcoin and other digital currencies to his grave, has sparked rumours he may have faked his death. 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. I'm new to this subreddit, I apologise if anything I have said breaks the rules. pic.twitter.com/rGymJ5f9Or. Have something to tell us about this article? 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. Lawyers for customers of an insolvent cryptocurrency exchange have asked police to exhume the body of the companys founder, amid efforts to recover about $190m in Bitcoin which were locked in an online black hole after his death. 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. Given the mysterious circumstances of his deathand the enormous amount of money he controlledits no surprise that conspiracies quickly sprang up in an attempt to piece together the puzzles around his death. On the 9th, he allegedly died after episodes of cardiac arrest. [30], According to Jennifer Robertson, Cotten's widow, he died on 9 December 2018 while travelling in India. 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. It essentially removes the need for a central authority. 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. Official investigations into the matter have yet to produce any definitive answers. , 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. thinks that Gerald is deadnor did he ever meet his wife. But even the forensic accountants only managed to trace $46 million of the total $215 million customers had deposited onto the exchange. There is a clear lesson here that having a single person owning this information creates a huge vulnerability.. Quadriga's accounts are estimated to have held 190million ($250million). I'm 99% sure he is still alive living nicely. 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". March 30, 2022. The media dragged Gerald Cotten's wife, Jennifer Robertson, into the spotlight after his mysterious death. 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. Wood ordered a "30-day stay that precludes filing of claims against Quadriga", which is a temporary legal protection from its creditors under the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act, a legal status that allows insolvent corporations to restructure their business and financial affairs. Was Patryn, whom employees described as a macho, terrifying character, calling the shots, not Cotten? 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. 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. His wife Jennifer Robertson said he had promised to create a mechanism that turned thepasswords over to her when he died. Cotten was young, energetic, passionate about cryptocurrency so when. Either this is a 1 in 100 million coincidence or he is still alive. 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. Netflix announced an upcoming documentary about the Quadriga Bitcoin saga and the death of CEO Gerald Cotten. This was my entire savings, built through ten years of work, said one disgruntled customer in the doc. 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. 5 But when the banks, the law, and the. 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. Lawyers representing investors in what BBC. One of the Globe reporters had a hunch that this was Gerry Cotten, and traced the account to another online den of thieves, BlackHatWorld. [33], Cotten's will was signed 27 November 2018, twelve days before he allegedly died. Thats when the Globe started to be convinced that he was dead, after all. [17], In 2016, Cotten became the sole director of Quadriga when all the other directors resigned. Gerald Cotten had an estimated net worth of $80 million at the time of his death. Angry and suspicious investors congregated on Reddit and Telegram to try to get to the bottom of the mystery. Was he avoiding something or someone? I didnt know that Gerry was married, he says. 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,. He is believed to have carried out Ponzi scheme scams since he was just 15 - such as playing a role in pre-crypto digital token eGold, according to investigator Amy Castor. Jilted investors of Cotton's crypto firm QuadrigaCX have demanded his corpse be exhumed and tests run to confirm its his body. The estate includes an airplane, a sailboat, a 2017 Lexus, and real estate in Nova Scotia and Kelowna, British Columbia. 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? Both Canadas tax authorities and the FBI are also investigating the company. [45], In June 2020, the Ontario Securities Commission officially concluded that Quadriga was indeed a fraud and a Ponzi scheme. There were other problems around that time. November 28, 2022 by Nurudeen. 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. Attack on Titan Season 4 Part 4 to release Fall 2023, confirms new trailer, {{#media.media_details}} {{#media.focal_point}}.
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