, 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. 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. "[40][41], Ernst & Young found five Quadriga cold wallet addresses, but they were empty, containing no cryptocurrency since April 2018. After some more digging, the reporter found an order form filled out by one Gerald Cotten. There was no way of getting my money back. So the Globe goes to Cottens hospital in India to put the whole fake death thing to bed. No longer a likable nerd, investors thought that Gerald, now sceptre, had been operating scams since he was 15. Then you get rid of the fees. [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. 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. By Robin Hill-Gray. 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. 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. Fifteen years later, Mr Cotten, known as Gerry, would be accused of swindling people online of a much bigger prize. Netflix Special on Bitcoin Fraudster Gerald Cotten, His Wife, and QuadrigaCX. 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. Front Burner- Inside Canada's Crypto Mystery, Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival, Trust No One: The Hunt for the Crypto King, "Investigation of Quadriga cryptocurrency debacle turns up only $28 million in assets", "Nothing sinister about bitcoin company CEO's sudden death, friend says", "Troubled Bitcoin trader QuadrigaCX takes another bizarre turn", "Canada's largest cryptocurrency exchange Quadriga seeks creditor protection", "Bitcoin Accounts for 95% of Cryptocurrency Crime, Says Analyst", "Crypto-Exchange Says It Can't Pay Investors Because Its C.E.O. [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. Still, all this evidence was circumstantialinvestors hadnt yet found a smoking gun. 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. [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. Then the Ontario Securities Commission opened an investigation. (India is notorious for forging fake death certificates by paying people off). Was a recently-active Skype account proof he was still alive? 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. The podcast was hosted by Takara Small. ^ "Quadriga CEO's widow speaks out over his death and the missing crypto millions". A Canadian bank froze another $21 million of funds. 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. The new documentary "Dead Man's Switch" looks at the mystery of Gerald Cotten, the QuadrigaCX CEO who unexpectedly died and some $250 in investors' money seemingly disappeared with him. The Globe and Mail reporters were on the case, and used photos to conclude that they were the same person. 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. 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. At this point, lots of investors think that Cotten, a man alleged to have a history of scamming, really had faked his own death. But when co-founder Cotten died during a honeymoon in India, the money was seemingly lost forever. 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. 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. There is a clear lesson here that having a single person owning this information creates a huge vulnerability.. 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. pic.twitter.com/rGymJ5f9Or. But even the forensic accountants only managed to trace $46 million of the total $215 million customers had deposited onto the exchange. So his spiral down into a life of crime was either pure greed or him seeking the thrill. 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. 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. 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. This was more of a gamblers high than a rich guys high as he pursued more and more of other peoples money, the stakes went up. Sign up for our newsletter for the latest tech news and scoops delivered daily to your inbox. ", "Vancouver crypto exchange, CIBC clash over frozen accounts", "Judge rules with CIBC, grants possession of disputed Quadriga funds to Ontario Superior Court", "The fintech 'genius' accused in $165m fraud", "Crypto Firm Cited in Bitfinex Case Had Also Worked With Quadriga", "Quadriga co-founder served time in U.S. for role in identity-theft ring, documents reveal", "Criminal Past Haunts Surviving Founder of Troubled Crypto Exchange", "Crypto firm CEO with $190 million password did die in Jaipur hospital", "Cryptocurrency Exchange Says It Can't Access $190 Million After CEO Unexpectedly Died", "Millions in cryptocurrencies frozen in Canada after only person who had password dies in India", "Crypto Exchange Founder Filed Will 12 Days Before He Died", "Quadriga CEO, whose death ignited a cryptocurrency storm, a kind man with taste for fine things, say friends", "Crypto Exchange Mystery Deepens as Board Seeks Court Protection", "Crypto exchange Quadriga files for creditor protection", "Quadriga mystery deepens with little evidence of cold wallets containing $250M", "A Crypto-Mystery: Is $136 Million Stuck or Missing? He graduated from York with a bachelor of business administration in 2010. Thinking that Jennifer had murdered Cotten, the Telegram group spiraled out of control. Ernst & Young was able to recover $24m in cash and $9m in assets held by Robertson. https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/hiring-a-programmer-website-like-bitstamp-bitcoin-trading-project.605236/. Premieres in 2022 pic.twitter.com/rP9iFJHkWm. Jennifer, scared for her safety, entered a safe house. Some 76,000 investors like Zou collectively lost out. [2], In January 2019 Ernst & Young reported that Quadriga did not have a bank account, but instead used third-party payment processors. 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. Where was the rest of the money? Was, whom employees described as a macho, terrifying character, that Patryn was involved in a money-laundering ring under a different name, Then, out of the blue, one Mike Patryn joined the Telegram group that investors were using to discuss conspiracies. The podcast was reported by Aaron Lammer and Lane Brown.[55]. Customers have since struggled to regain access to their money, citing withdrawl issues and lack of communication from the company. He was able to keep the venture, called S&S Investments, going for three months, before it folded and investors money was gone. name was not the same as Robertsons ex-husband, some angry investors lobbed death threats at Jennifer, convinced that she had murdered Cotten, too. 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. that after 2016, QuadrigaCX stopped producing consistent data about its holdings, and that large volumes of cryptocurrencies were being sent to foreign crypto exchanges. It just wasnt there. By clicking Sign up, you agree to receive marketing emails from Insider Here's a link to the BlackHat forum. Still, questions about the missing money only mounted when two Globe and Mail reporters followed up on the case. 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. About C$1.2 billion worth of bitcoin was exchanged on Quadriga. TRUST NO ONE: THE HUNT FOR THE CRYPTO KING, a DONT F*CK WITH CATS-style investigative thriller, is now streaming on Netflix. 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. 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. 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". But months later, customers still couldnt take their money out. The dude literally said that comment as a complete joke, and I even . "[46] The Official Ontario Securities report on Quadriga is attached here. His body was repatriated to Canada and a funeral was held in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The Netflix documentary will follow investors-turned-investigators looking into theories on the founder's sudden death. They surfed his social media accounts at first, then traced Cottens digital footprints even more closely for clues. "So far, nothing's been found. 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. 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. He died just nine days into his honeymoon due to an acute stomach ache. One of the Globe reporters had a hunch that this was Gerry Cotten, and traced the account to another online den of thieves, BlackHatWorld. So, Patryn: shit-stirrer, criminal mastermind or another one beguiled by Cotten? 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." Do you have a story for The Sun Online Tech & Science team? She has also said she has no idea what the passwords are to access sequestered customer funds, and that it wasnt written down anywhere. 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". 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. Supposedly, Cottens business associates didnt even know he was married. She had accompanied him to a hospital in Jaipur the previous day and he was diagnosed with septic shock, perforation, peritonitis, and intestinal obstruction. And, wildly, was Jennifer, his wife, even real? NOW WATCH: Netflix is headed for a huge profit milestone in 2018, Personal Finance Insider's picks for best cryptocurrency exchanges. [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. Some speculate that Cotten, who suffered with Crohn's disease, might actually be alive. 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". 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. Jennifer RobertsonGerry Cotten,. When Quadriga CEO Gerald Cotten died suddenly in 2018, the passcodes for his cryptocurrency exchange died with him. A bitcoin mining operation in Saint Hyacinthe, Quebec. 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. 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. 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. One of the. 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. 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. 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. Despite no concrete evidenceindeed, the murdered mans. Now Cottens jet-set lifestyle looked suspicious. The thing is, a CEOs death shouldnt lock customers out of their money. CRYPTO scams are popping up all over the internet. 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. Stay up to date with what you want to know. You transferred them $1,000 and you could see the crypto in your account. Thats when the Globe started to be convinced that he was dead, after all. And meanwhile, Dead Man's Switch director Sheona McDonald said: "There's only two people who really know what happened in India.". For instance, had Cottens death certificate, which spelled his name as Cottan, been faked? 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. March 30, 2022. [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. Finally, the OSC discovered something that cracked the case wide open. X-rays. Zou trusted Quadriga CX, Canada's largest cryptocurrency exchange, with C$500,000 (305,000). When Taylor Monahan, founder of MyCrypto, examined the exchanges cold wallets, she couldnt find the lost crypto. In court filings, it was revealed that Mr Cottens email was listed as Midas Golds contact. "It just makes me more depressed about it," Zou told Sky News. I took out three loans from the bank and put it all into crypto. [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. 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. The OSC tugged on the same thread, but neither could get hold of him. We explain how to spot them. Many believe that Cotten faked his death, however, as part of an exit scam to get away with stealing millions from Quadrigas customers. Mr Cotten, 30 at the time of his death, seemed to be living the dream life of a financial titan. "I couldn't get any sleep. His death certificate was issued by the Indian authorities and contains an incorrect spelling of his name. [1], The company's CEO and founder, Gerald William Cotten, allegedly died in 2018 after traveling to India. This was my entire savings, built through ten years of work, said one disgruntled customer in the doc. Dhanani also had pleaded guilty to burglary and grand theft charges and had been deported to Canada. 'Trust No One: The Hunt for the Crypto King' will be released sometime in 2022. Gerald Cotten Still Alive ? "What Quadriga really did with the money that customers gave it to buy Bitcoin remains a mystery," according to Chainalysis. Rather than pay customers via bank wires, they were told to come to a nondescript building in Laval, Quebec to pick up the cash. 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. I could have put it in stocks. Check out: Personal Finance Insider's picks for best cryptocurrency exchanges. Trust No One: The Hunt for the Crypto King. 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. Jilted investors of Cotton's crypto firm QuadrigaCX have demanded his corpse be exhumed and tests run to confirm its his body. 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. 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. Quadriga's customers are owed C$260 million in cryptocurrency and cash. [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. [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. "You appear dead for a few days, until you get the cure," the source said. did gerry and his wife fake his passing and steal the money? 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. Gerald Cotten. [33], Cotten's will was signed 27 November 2018, twelve days before he allegedly died. Widow of Quadriga crypto founder Gerald Cotten says she had no idea about the $215-million scam In an exclusive interview, Jennifer Robertson speaks out publicly about her deceased husband,. April 2, 2022 Netflix Nobody was expecting Gerald Cotten, the CEO of Canadian Bitcoin exchange QuadrigaCX, to die at 30. Retrieved 18 January 2022. Gerald 'Gerry' Cotten | FAKE Behind 'Hunt For The Crypto King' Netflix | Where Are They Now?Subscribe Here! 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. Gerald Cotten, 30, died abruptly in December 2018 of complications relating to Crohn's disease while on honeymoon in Jaipur, India, with his wife, Jennifer Robertson. The shocking story has been recounted in a new Netflix documentary, Trust No One: The Hunt For The Crypto King. https://bit.ly/3cAIH4j Newest Vid's https:. In 2019 the exchange ceased operations and the company filed for bankruptcy with C$215.7 million in liabilities and about C$28 million in assets. But even the forensic accountants only managed to trace $46 million of the total $215 million customers had deposited onto the exchange. The 33-year-old has attempted to get his money back in a lawsuit, but hasn't had any luck as yet. Lived In Los Angeles CA, Austin TX, Van Nuys CA . Gerald Cotten, the founder of QuadrigaCX, was thought to have had sole access to the funds and coins exchanged on it. Investors tried to pull their money from Quadriga, but sometimes faced month-long delays. The estate includes an airplane, a sailboat, a 2017 Lexus, and real estate in Nova Scotia and Kelowna, British Columbia. And, wildly, was Jennifer, his wife, even. Quadriga's accounts are estimated to have held 190million ($250million). His body was repatriated to . [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. Given the intrigue, some went so far as to question whether Mr Cotten had really died and demanded his body be exhumed. A big chunk of it was given to him by his parents. Shortly after, the exchange stopped working entirely. 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. He graduated from York in 2010 with a bachelor's degree in business administration. 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. 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. But when the banks, the law, and the. Netflix announced an upcoming documentary about the Quadriga Bitcoin saga and the death of CEO Gerald Cotten. 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. A big chunk of it was given to him by his parents. Sam, Bangs & Moonshine by Evaline Ness (Holt). In their letter to the RCMP the law firm underlined the need for certainty around the question of whether Mr Cotten is in fact deceased. Neither Costodian or Quadriga could access the funds. It has led the pack of other streaming giants, producing the most projects in the true-crime genre as of 2020. However, it was eventually discovered that Gerald had transferred all of his belongings to his wife before his death. After his death in December, his colleagues said that about $137 million in cryptocurrency belonging to about 115,000 customers was held offline in "cold storage" and inaccessible. 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. I ended up losing my life savings I lost $400,000, Tong Zou, a tech worker quoted in the film, says. 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. 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. Was Patryn, whom employees described as a macho, terrifying character, calling the shots, not Cotten? Someone tracked Patryn to a scam forum called TalkGold, where Patryn talked to one user in particular, sceptre, a bunch. 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. Was the CEOknown for his luxurious lifestyle, which included jets, supercars and vacationsmurdered by a mob debt collector or a jealous lover?
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