Bitcoin billionaire Mircea Popescu's death: Fate of $1 billion crypto fortune remains unknown

Ultra wealthy people can afford an approach that isn’t as jerry-rigged, and have turned to one of their favorite ways to protect their money, bitcoin investors dies photo, like trusts and family offices. These people — most of whom have either gotten rich by investing in crypto early or have since bought crypto as part of their broader investment strategy — are storing their crypto with specialized financial institutions that focus almost entirely on managing the bitcoin investors dies photo assets of the financial elite. Hundreds of families have taken this path, Diogo Mónica, the president and co-founder of Anchorage Digital, bitcoin investors dies photo, one of the main firms providing this type of service, told Recode.

While these approaches vary, they’re all supposed to protect against the nightmare scenario: blocking families from their loved ones’ crypto forever. Without these keys, families can find themselves searching — sometimes for years — for their loved one’s digital assets. Across the internet, there are pleas for help from peoplelooking for their loved one’s crypto. Some families have even hired digital forensic researchers to help them find the lost funds, hoping that they find a clue into where their loved one might have stored a record of their key before they died.

“If you don’t create a copy of that key and put that key in a safe place bitcoin investors dies photo the people that you trust can find it and know what to do with it, then the wealth that you’ve accumulated in crypto is just going to sit there,” Matthew McClintock, an attorney who specializes in cryptocurrency estate planning, told Recode. “It just is locked away, stored in its address, and nobody can get to it.”

Families have been locked out of enormous fortunes because they couldn’t find their loved one’s keys. A man named Michael Moody was unable to unlock the bitcoin that belonged to his son, Matthew Moody, who died in a plane crash in California. Matthew Moody was an early miner of bitcoin, which means his crypto would be worth a lot of money today. Similarly, lawyers for the estate belonging to the late American businessman Matthew Mellon, who had a reported $ million worth of a cryptocurrency called XRP, were locked out of his crypto estate because they couldn’t find his private keys, which Mellon had stored on devices scattered across the US before he died. Lawyers were only able to eventually access that crypto because XRP happens to be run by a company that was willing to unlock Mellon’s crypto a little at a time. This approach wouldn’t work for most people, or even for most types of cryptocurrency, including bitcoin and ethereum.

Inheritance is challenging crypto’s libertarian ethos

Theoretically, crypto is supposed to put people’s wealth in their own hands. Because you control your private key — and your crypto is backed up on the blockchain — you don’t need to rely on any financial institution to access your money. You can control your crypto entirely on your own, bitcoin investors dies photo, which is why some crypto investors say bitcoin investors dies photo their own bank, or even “self-sovereign.”

In this way, inheritance strikes at the root of crypto’s libertarian ethos. If you want to pass your crypto on, you need to trust someone, bitcoin investors dies photo, somewhere, with your financial information. If you access crypto by using an internet-based exchange like Coinbase, you’ve left your key with Coinbase, and you’re relying on that company’s employees to hand over your crypto when your heir asks for it. Leaving your private key in a lockbox for your spouse might seem simple enough, bitcoin investors dies photo, but you have to trust that your spouse knows what to do with it, bitcoin investors dies photo.

Basically, you have to decide how much you care about your crypto’s security when you’re still alive, and how much you care about your family’s access to that crypto once you’re dead.

Striking that balance isn’t easy. Some people have shared their keys with their family members for safekeeping, only for that family member to turn around and steal their crypto, Paul Sibenik, a case manager at the blockchain forensics firm CipherBlade, told Recode. And while putting your crypto key information in your will might seem like an easy alternative, these documents sometimes become public during probate, so there’s a risk that your crypto key — and the ability to spend your crypto — becomes public too. There’s also the fact that many Americans haven’t written a will at all.

“Ask anyone that owns stock on the street: What happens to your stocks when you die? They don’t know. They haven’t prepared,” said Tyrone Ross, a financial adviser and founder of STC, a storytelling consultancy. “Crypto is no different.”

There’s no perfect solution: Anyone who owns crypto could run into problems passing down crypto if they don’t make a plan. In the meantime, crypto’s value continues to grow, which means the stakes are only getting higher. Ten years ago, bitcoin was worth a few hundred dollars; last fall, it reached a record high of $68, That means even just one bitcoin is now enough to cover expensive medical bills, college tuition, or even a downpayment on a house. In fact, crypto is so valuable that you might even owe taxes on it. The IRS considers virtual currency a form of property, so you might owe the government money if you sold crypto after inheriting it.

At the same time, that people are inheriting crypto is just another sign that cryptocurrencies have become a real part of everyday finances. After all, bitcoin investors dies photo, you can now access crypto from ATMs, mobile payment apps like Venmo, your credit card company, and even your job. So many people have crypto that these digital assets are even popping up in divorce proceedings. Since crypto has become such a big part of life, it makes sense that it would become a part of death, too.

But in many respects, the uncertain state of cryptocurrency estate planning is evidence that we still don’t know what role crypto will ultimately play in our lives, and that we’re still figuring out how to even use it. What we do know is that none of us live forever, even if our crypto might.

Источник: [www.oldyorkcellars.com]

The news of Cotten's demise set off wild theories on social media, including speculation that he had faked his own death. So the man behind the handle QCX-INT began an investigation, bitcoin investors dies photo, following a virtual trail he hoped would ultimately lead to their missing funds.

"I was absolutely committed to doing a comprehensive report and a report in a form that could be provided to … investigators that was based on evidence, not hearsay, not conspiracy theories."

What he would uncover would change the course of this story. Without him, the narrative would likely have ended with the death of a young CEO taking his secrets and keys to a fortune to his grave.

By documenting a detailed web of connections, QCX-INT uncovered a pattern of fraud that predated Quadriga, linking Cotten and his former business partner to a shadowy underworld of fraudsters and money launderers — the criminal element that underpinned the very origins of digital currency.

II. The disruptor

Gerald Cotten's career trajectory appeared to follow that of the stereotypical internet-nerd-turns-tycoon story. He was a small-town Canadian boy who seemed to have the Midas touch.

Cotten grew up in Belleville, Ont., two hours east of Toronto. His parents, Bruce and Cheryl, ran a business selling antiques and collectibles just off the main highway. While the Cottens sold vintage jewelry and furniture, "Gerry" showed an early interest in the new digital frontier.

Scott Giroux, who went to the same high school as Cotten, said he didn't have many friends. "Gerry kind of kept to himself for the most part. I never knew him to be overly social. Bitcoin investors dies photo know, occasionally kind of one-on-one, you might be able to have a bit of a conversation with him," he said. Giroux described him as "nerdy" and into sci-fi, with a goofy sense of humour.

What really stood out for Giroux was Cotten's love for technology, bitcoin investors dies photo. "He was just always leaps and bounds beyond most of the computer teachers."

Giroux remembered Cotten rushing through assignments in class so he could spend more time finding ways around the firewalls blocking certain websites at school, which would allow him to play online games in class.

His high school math teacher, who asked not to be identified, said Cotten hired people on the internet to build code for him. The teacher said he was smart, had an interest in money and was always "looking for an angle."

After high school, Cotten went to study at York University in Toronto, graduating from the Schulich School of Business in Three years later, he and business partner Michael Patryn launched the cryptocurrency exchange QuadrigaCX.

Patryn worked mostly behind the scenes, while Cotten was the face of the company. That meant evangelizing about bitcoin on YouTube and at events and conferences organized by crypto enthusiasts. He billed himself as a disruptor who would challenge traditional forms of banking.

During a guest appearance on a Vancouver podcast called True Bromance inCotten said he wasn't actually promoting a business, but a new way of thinking. Bitcoin, he explained, bitcoin investors dies photo, is a peer-to-peer network, and the cryptocurrency is traded and stored with the use of a decentralized ledger called the blockchain. The transactions are public, but users' identities remain anonymous.

"It essentially removes the need for a central authority. Then you get rid of the fees. You get rid of a lot of the regulations," Cotten said, bitcoin investors dies photo. "It's pretty much money by people for people."

QuadrigaCX was a platform where people could trade bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. "Kind of like a stock exchange," Cotten said.

Over the next four years, the platform would reach heights even Cotten couldn't have possibly imagined, handling hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of transactions, and with tens of thousands of customers. The success of the company reflected the meteoric rise of bitcoin inwhich started the year valued at around $ US and by mid-December was almost $20,

"Nobody had ever seen that before. It was a spectacular run-up," said Amy Castor, a freelance journalist who covers cryptocurrencies and financial fraud and was one of the first to report on Cotten's early history, on her blog. "A lot of money was flowing into [QuadrigaCX] before then. Everybody wanted to get into cryptocurrency, hoping they could make money for nothing." That is, a get-rich-quick scheme.

As the value of bitcoin was rising and more people entrusted their money with QuadrigaCX, Cotten was snatching up properties in Nova Scotia and British Columbia with his soon-to-be wife, Jennifer Robertson. He also purchased luxury vehicles, a yacht and a Cessna aircraft. They were living the high life and went on lavish vacations. Cotten once boasted that he had traveled to 56 countries, 37 of them with Robertson.

Byhowever, their fortunes were turning. The crypto bubble had burst and the price of bitcoin was in a free fall. By the end of that year, it was below $4, Throughout that time, many Quadriga customers tried to pull their money off of the exchange in an attempt to cut their losses. A few others continued buying, placing their bets on the possibility that the price of bitcoin would go back up.

But that meant Cotten had less cash needed to pay out the withdrawal requests. There were news reports of delays, with some customers waiting months for their money to be processed.

When bitcoin exchanges "start having withdrawal delays, that's when you start worrying. And that's when you get your money out," said Salkeld, the Vancouver bitcoiner. "The withdrawals [at QuadrigaCX] sped up and what should i invest in stocks right now it didn't take long before the withdrawals outnumbered the deposits."

Cotten had other problems, too. Among them: CIBC had frozen $26 million Cdn of the company's money because of suspicious activity, and another $10 million Cdn had been made inaccessible by a software bug.

In the middle of this tumultuous year, Cotten and Robertson got married. At the end of November, on the advice of their lawyer, just days before their honeymoon in India, Cotten made out a will, leaving everything — the properties, digital assets, even his frequent flyer points — to Robertson.

When Robertson posted on Quadriga's Facebook page in January that Cotten had suddenly died — due to complications from Crohn's disease — and later that he was the only person with the passcodes to customer funds, the crypto community was abuzz with theories.

A month after Robertson publicly announced his death, Cotten's estate released a statement in reaction to the "upsetting questions raised" about whether he could possibly still be alive. It included Robertson's account of Cotten's final days in India.

In it, she said that the general manager of the Jaipur hotel helped Robertson with the documents required to have his body transported back to Canada. This included putting her in touch with a medical transportation company.

According to the statement, Cotten was bitcoin investors dies photo and placed in a casket and the transportation company flew Robertson and his body to New Delhi, bitcoin investors dies photo. From there, they flew to Halifax on Dec. 11,where they were met at the airport by friends and family. A closed casket funeral with a small group of family, bitcoin investors dies photo, friends and co-workers was held on Dec.

Jennifer Robertson has declined CBC's repeated requests for an interview for this story. However, through an email from her lawyer, Robertson confirmed that "she was with Mr, bitcoin investors dies photo. Cotten at the time of his death and he is most certainly dead."

Cotten's family wouldn't talk to CBC for the podcast, bitcoin investors dies photo.

None of that changed the fact that more than a quarter of a billion dollars of investor funds was missing. QCX-INT and other creditors formed an online group where they would combine efforts to find out as much as they could about Cotten and the people behind his company.

"At that point, we were desperate to recover funds and we were also convinced that a scam was underway," said QCX-INT.

III. Finding Sceptre

QCX-INT, which stands for "Quadriga Intelligence," spent the next few months running his business by day and spending his nights working on the investigation, driven by a sense of mounting outrage at every new revelation.

He posted his research online and encouraged others to share tips with him in April He also shared those findings with bitcoin investors dies photo RCMP and the FBI.

"It did become an obsession," he said.

A tenacious man in his forties, he's as meticulous in his appearance as in his work. When the CBC interviewed him for the podcast via video chat, he was dressed in a black cap and dark vest, with no logos. "I thrive on detail, I thrive on data. I mean, I'm in the tech space. That's part of my world."

In his attempt to untangle the mystery of Gerald Cotten and Quadriga, QCX-INT began with simple things like domain names and any information he could obtain from historical searches, public records, data leaks online and the Wayback Machine, also known as the Internet Archive, which is a graveyard for dead web pages.

LISTEN bitcoin investors dies photo

A crypto millionaire, loose ends & a dead end: A consignment of teddy bears before Gerald Cotten died

By Rohan Abraham

A consignment of teddy bears, yet to be delivered, is the last connection to millionaire Gerald Cotten’s final days before his suspicious death in India, bitcoin investors dies photo.

Pastor Cherukupalli Rama Raohas been waiting for four months for a dozen odd beady-eyed teddy bears to reach the six children under his charge at the Angel House Indiahome in Venkatapuram village, Mudigona, Telangana.

But the stuffed teddies are probably hibernating somewhere in a five-star luxury hotel in Bitcoin investors dies photo — or they are simply lost in transit.

Rama Rao oversees an orphanage built — albeit not entirely — with the help of a Rs lakh donation from Canadian cryptocurrencyentrepreneur Gerald Cotten and his wife, Jennifer Robertson.

In DecemberCotten, the founder-CEO of QuadrigaCX, and Robertson flew to Jaipur from Canada for their honeymoon and were to go for the opening of the Jennifer Robertson and Gerald Cotten House.

But the couple never reached Venkatapuram, nor did their gifts, bitcoin investors dies photo.

“We have not received the teddy bears yet,” Stephen Chittababu, an administrator for Angel House India in Hyderabad tells ETPanache. Instead, the staff received an email: “It is heartbreaking. Gerald passed away in Jaipur. Please go forward with the opening.” It was sent by Robertson.


On a hunch
According to reports in Canadian media, Cotten and Robertson had tied the knot in Scotland in October A month later, bitcoin investors dies photo, on November 27, Cotten reportedly made his will, leaving all his financial assets to his wife, making her the sole executor of his estate. His sailboat went to his parents, Bruce and Cheryl Cotten, bitcoin investors dies photo, while his private aircraft, a Cessnawas given to his brother, Bradley.

For a year-old with no history of life-threatening ailments, the decision to draft his will days before he left for India can be construed as a sign of newfound conjugal responsibility or a traveller’s wariness about the dangers of the subcontinent.

The honeymoon was short-lived. Within 24 hours of their arrival on December 8, Cotten was declared dead.


Taking bitcoin investors dies photo to the grave
Cotten’s death has been a loss, not just to his wife, but to investors who traded on QuadrigaCX, Canada’s largest crypto currency exchange. In its assessment of the lawsuits filed by creditors, the Nova Scotia Supreme Court found that users of the nowdefunct exchange are owed C$ million (approx. US $ million), most of which is held in cryptocurrency.

According to court documents, C$ million (approx, bitcoin investors dies photo. US $ million) in bitcoin and other cryptocurrency are locked in offline wallets that are inaccessible since Cotten was the only person who knew the encrypted passcodes. The residual amount is held in cash linked to bank drafts in the hands of third-party payment companies.

Ernst & Young, bitcoin investors dies photo, appointed by the court to audit the firm’s accounts, found that five of the six cold wallets used to store investors’ cryptocurrency have been empty since April The sixth was used to receive bitcoin funds from another exchange as late as December 3, a few days before Cotten’s death.

Since JanuaryQuadrigaCX was locked in litigation with a major Canadian bank, which froze $28 million of its assets.


Chequered history
When QuadrigaCX was founded inthe company didn’t reveal to investors bitcoin investors dies photo its co-founder, Michael Patryn, was previously known as Omar Dhanani, a convicted felon who served time in the US.

According to reports, inDhanani was sentenced to 18 months in a US federal prison for identity theft. He pleaded guilty to running www.oldyorkcellars.com, a now-defunct online marketplace where stolen account numbers and credit card data were peddled.

Contradicting a Bloomberg investigation, Patryn denies the allegation that he and Dhanani are the same person. Patryn left Quadriga in following disagreements with Cotten over the company’s plan to go public.

Changing identities
Patryn isn’t the only one in this ménage to have changed his name. InCotten’s then girlfriend Jennifer changed her surname twice. Property records show that Jennifer Forgeron bought real estate in May Soon after, she changed her surname to Griffith. Later in December, she became Jennifer Robertson.

According to Nova Scotia’s Registry of Joint Stock Companies, two companies registered with it — QuadrigaCX and Robertson Nova Property Inc (RNA) — share their official addresses with that of the Cottens’ old home.

Nova Scotia’s property registry shows that RNA has a net worth of around $7 million with only one employee on its books — Jennifer Robertson. Since its inception in tillthe company acquired more than a dozen luxury properties that have either been sold or leased out.

Conflict of interest
Cotten’s widow set off a firestorm after she informed the court that she was not privy to the passwords of QuadrigaCX’s cold wallets and wasn’t involved in the operational side of bitcoin investors dies photo business. However, a few users have shared photographic evidence online, including screenshots of payments directly from RNA.

These pertain to payments towards withdrawal requests made to the crypto exchange in and Some clients argued that a third-party company unrelated to QuadrigaCX is a breach of law and establishes Robertson’s complicity in siphoning funds.

Attempts to contact Robertson drew a blank. bitcoin investors dies photo to India
On November 30, three days after signing his will, Cotten and Robertson landed in New Delhi on a tourist visa. Robertson posted the couple’s photos in front of the Taj Mahal in Agra on her Instagram, bitcoin investors dies photo. The account has since been made private.

On December 8, the couple reached Jaipur and checked into the Oberoi Rajvilas where they had a reservation for four days. They were scheduled to reach Hyderabad on December 12 and travel to Venkatapuram to inaugurate the orphanage.

Agencies

Jennifer Robertson shared a picture of herself and husband Gerald Cotten at the Taj Mahal.

According to Canadian newspaper Globe and Mail, shortly after checking into the hotel at pm, Cotten complained of a stomach pain. He was attended to by a hotel doctor, who recommended consulting a specialist at Fortis Escorts Hospital. A hospital statement said that Cotten was brought in at pm with what was deemed traveller’s diarrhoea.

According to reports, Cotten spent the night in a private room. Hospital documents, accessed by The Times of India, say he was diagnosed with “septic shock, perforation, peritonitis and intestinal obstruction”. A report by Cotten’s treating doctor, Dr Jayant Sharma, reveals that the Canadian suffered from Crohn’s disease, a chronic ailment that causes inflammation of the digestive tract.

Robertson’s affidavit to the court said that Cotten was diagnosed with the disease when he was

Final moments
At pm on December 9, Cotten went into cardiac arrest. He was resuscitated twice and placed on a ventilator. By pm, he was declared dead. The cause of death was identified as cardiac arrest triggered by a perforation. No autopsy was performed.

The rapid decline of Cotten’s vitals is consistent with what a patient with Crohn’s might experience. However, research shows that mortality rates from the disease have gone down in recent years.

On the bitcoin investors dies photo of December 10, the Jawahar Circle police station issued an NOC — a document that rules out foul play and is required to transfer the body of foreign nationals. The death certificate issued by the Rajasthan bitcoin investors dies photo states that Cotten died on December 9, but wrongly identifies him as ‘Gerald William Cottan’.

His body was then transferred to the hotel.


‘Something’s wrong’
When foreign nationals die in India, the standard procedure mandates that the body be embalmed before being transported. Fortis normally sends corpses of foreigners to the Mahatma Gandhi Medical College& Hospital (MGMC). However, this time, the hospital had to turn down a request.

“Two boys came over and asked if I could embalm the body of a Canadian man,” a senior doctor at MGMC’s Department of Anatomy tells ETPanache on condition of anonymity. “They told me they worked for a hotel. I outright denied. Bilkul no, no. We don’t accept bodies if they are not transferred directly from the hospital concerned in an ambulance. Something is wrong.”

Cotten’s mortal remains were then taken to the SMS Medical College, a government institution. The doctors there were less inquisitive. An embalming certificate was duly issued.

During a telephonic conversation, Oberoi Rajvilas refused to comment, saying, bitcoin investors dies photo have already made our position clear. All the information is out in the public domain. We have nothing more to add at this point.” A detailed questionnaire seeking details of the teddy-bear package and the transportation of Cotten’s body went unanswered.

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Contradictory reports
Hospital records accessed by the Globe and Mail found that representatives of Oberoi Rajvilas transported the body for the embalming process. The contact details listed in the form include a phone number of the hotel’s security department and the licence plate of a company car.

According to the death certificate, bitcoin investors dies photo, Cotten’s place of death is Fortis Escorts Hospital, Malviya Nagar, bitcoin investors dies photo, Jaipur. It further lists his address at time of death as the Oberoi Rajvilas.

The death was officially registered on December 13, by which time Robertson had returned to Canada, bitcoin investors dies photo. An official at the High Commission of Canada in New Delhi said in an email that consular assistance was provided in the case. “To protect the privacy of the individuals concerned, further details on this case cannot be released,” it further said.

On December 10, the day after Cotten’s death, Robertson checked out of the hotel, leaving in their charge the teddy bears meant for the children at the orphanage.

Angel investor
With olive-green walls, bitcoin investors dies photo, the single-storey Jennifer Robertson and Gerald Cotten Home bitcoin otc order book on elevated ground, according to photos accessed by ETPanache. The façade of the building features a plaque with the names of the two patrons. Inscribed beneath it is: “Follow your dreams — Reach for the stars — Let your heart be your guide.”

Rama Rao tells ETPanache that Robertson reached out to Angel House India in Junebut funds were not forthcoming. He had to dip into his personal finances to provide basic necessities for the children.

The Cottens provided money that was enough to buy construction bitcoin investors dies photo. “[But] For dayto-day expenses, we still survive on donations from local patrons like the village elders, political leaders, and generous citizens of the district,” Rama Rao says. The construction of the building set him back by Rs 7-lakh, a debt, he says, he is struggling to repay.

Rama Rao and his wife run the orphanage with assistance from a cook, teacher, and three other people. “I spend around Rs 35, a month to pay salaries and stock up the kitchen,” he says.


When asked whether he knew about the nature of Cotten’s work, administrator Chittababu says the details are immaterial. “It is the act of generosity that matters, not the total wealth of a donor. Homes run by Angel House India accommodate 4, children across the country and the organisation’s foreign arm accepts a one-time donation of US $21, [ approx. Rs 15 lakh] from patrons.”

“Gerald died in his prime. God bless his soul,” Chittababu adds.

Or did he? A New York Times article hints that there could be more at play here, saying that investors have taken to Redditand Twitter to “question whether Cotten had indeed died — or whether, perhaps, he had faked his death” to pull off a grand exit scam.

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Источник: [www.oldyorkcellars.com]

QCX-INT said that searches alone for the domain names used for Quadriga and Quadriga Financial Services would "yield up a name, an address, an email, a phone bitcoin investors dies photo. And those can be revealing, because they can be used to connect to other data points."

He built a web of connections that linked Cotten to dozens of websites, and ultimately traced him to the online handle Sceptre. "It was a real breakthrough," said QCX-INT. By making that connection, he said, "there's a pattern of activity that doesn't just stretch back a few months, it stretches back years and years."

QCX-INT's sleuthing revealed a history of fraudulent behaviour dating to the summer ofwhen Sceptre signed on bitcoin investors dies photo TalkGold, an online forum where he would promote HYIPs, or high yield investment programs. Essentially Ponzi schemes, they promised very high returns but were unregulated and anonymous, disclosing little or no details about the investment or who was behind it.

Investors on TalkGold used handles like Moolahoops, Skunktoes and Mozart. The exchange of funds between investors and Sceptre would also be anonymous, and they would hide their transactions by using the earliest forms of digital currency.

Although some investors may have been genuinely misled, for the most part, it was like online gambling. The more people that bought into the scheme, the more money you made, as long as you were among bitcoin investors dies photo first ones out, bitcoin investors dies photo. The last ones out would be left holding the bag.

"People would at first see a return on their investment. And if they wanted, they could pull their money out. But eventually, usually within, like, a matter of weeks or sometimes months, the website would just go offline," said Joe Castaldo, a business reporter at the Globe and Mail who also investigated Cotten's early activities on TalkGold.

"The operator would disappear and people lost their money. And there was no way, no recourse for them, because they didn't know who was running the website. The digital currency transactions were completely anonymous. There's no way to trace them. So they just lost their money and that was it."

"You don't really realize bitcoin investors dies photo how childlike he was."

Just as one of Sceptre's schemes would dry up, leaving angry investors in the lurch, he would set up a new one. Cotten would have been just 15 years old at the time.

During this research, QCX-INT also found a handful of websites bitcoin investors dies photo to Cotten that offered a proxy service that would reroute a make money overtime internet connection so that their IP bitcoin investors dies photo would be hidden — websites with names like www.oldyorkcellars.com and www.oldyorkcellars.com It appears he was creating sites that helped other people disguise themselves in the digital space.

In a screen capture from the Wayback Machine, one of those websites reads: "You can access virtually any site through our servers, bitcoin investors dies photo, and your boss or teachers won't know about it!"

During QCX-INT's investigations, bitcoin investors dies photo, the discovery that gnawed at him the most was a YouTube channel called GerryRulz. It was Cotten's personal account, and featured videos he had posted of himself in his early twenties.

"I think until you see him on video and in kind of his private life, you don't really realize just how childlike he was," QCX-INT said.

There was Cotten hanging his brother, Bradley, over a railing by his legs in an experiment to see whether he could drink upside down. There were also videos of Cotten burning various items — a Winnie the Pooh doll, a walnut, hair mousse, even Pokemon cards.

The one that struck QCX-INT the most was Cotten taking a $20 bill and melting it in the microwave. That video was posted inabout a year before Cotten launched Quadriga with Michael Patryn. QCX-INT saw it as an omen.

The burning of money "was actually quite sickening to watch," he said. "It made me extremely uneasy — just the thought that this guy had been in charge of several hundred million dollars and that myself and other Quadriga customers or creditors had trusted him with our funds."

IV. When Gerry met Michael

After the news of Cotten's death emerged in January, Michael Patryn, Quadriga's co-founder, told CBC News that Cotten once admitted to him that he "didn't open up to many people."

But Patryn said "he was able to open up to me and he was like a brother to me."

Asked how they had met, Patryn said Cotten had been living in Ontario and he had been in Montreal when they ran into each other at a few group events, before settling in Vancouver in

During the reporting for the podcast, CBC asked Patryn if he had met Cotten on TalkGold.

He responded by email, "I met Gerry in person at a restaurant in Ontario. We did not meet online on any forum."

But QCX-INT's vast trail of data points connected the two on TalkGold, where Patryn operated under his last name. It's not clear when the two first met online, but there are posts of Sceptre and Patryn interacting that date back to

"You go back and you look at a pattern of posts on TalkGold they're kind of running flank and running cover for each other and that extends out in other forums," QCX-INT said, bitcoin investors dies photo. "Sceptre and Patryn were like two peas in a pod."

When Patryn suddenly disappeared from TalkGold in Octoberbitcoin investors dies photo, posts about him being a convicted felon started to appear on the forum. Around that time there was news of arrests of individuals involved in a criminal network of fraudsters.

For many years, Patryn passed it off as just rumours, misinformation spread by his enemies and competitors, bitcoin investors dies photo. But despite his denials, his past is well-documented in public and court records. Not only that, those records reveal that Michael Patryn isn't even his original name.

Born Omar Dhanani, he changed his name twice, to Omar Patryn and years later to Michael Patryn.

Inat the age of 22, Omar Dhanani pleaded guilty for his role in an identity theft ring called www.oldyorkcellars.com It was an online marketplace where people could buy stolen bank and credit card numbers, passports and other wares to commit identity fraud.

According bitcoin investors dies photo Brett Johnson, one of the creators of www.oldyorkcellars.com, Dhanani was a money mule who went by another alias, Voleur (or "thief" in French). Johnson, an ex-felon-turned-podcaster, says Dhanani offered a service laundering illicit funds through an anonymous digital currency called E-Gold.

"Omar began offering a prepaid debit card," Johnson said in an interview with the CBC. "You'd send him dollars with E-Gold. He would charge maybe five, eight per cent. And then he would put, you know, bitcoin investors dies photo, dollars onto the prepaid debit card so you could take it to an ATM and cash it out."

Johnson explained that two decades ago, cryptocurrency didn't exist as it does today, but that E-Gold, in principle, was like bitcoin.

Johnson said bitcoin is "just a means to transfer value" and that E-Gold "is a precursor to today's cryptocurrency. The only thing that E-Gold lacked was the blockchain."

www.oldyorkcellars.com was eventually shut down by the United States Secret Service. Omar Dhanani was sentenced to 18 months in prison in the U.S. and then deported to Canada.

Michael Patryn eventually admitted to CBC that he'd done time, but added that these were the past transgressions of a young man.

Serving "a few months in a foreign country for a white collar crime" was "generally considered to be an unfortunate part of your childhood that you suffered the consequences for. Not a lifelong badge of dishonor," Patryn wrote in text messages with the CBC during the reporting of this story.

In a more recent email exchange with CBC in response to questions about his role in www.oldyorkcellars.com, Patryn downplayed it, calling the takedown a show.

"U.S. law enforcement referred to all unlicensed crypto exchanges as money laundering and dark nets as 'international criminal organizations.' This allowed for more of a media bitcoin investors dies photo, while arresting children selling credit card numbers over the internet," he wrote.

The American authorities bitcoin investors dies photo eventually bust Liberty Reserve.

In the year following his release from prison, Omar Patryn officially changed his name to Michael Patryn and set up another digital currency exchange operating on the web called Midas Gold. It operated as an intermediary, selling digital currencies for a business out of Costa Rica called Liberty Reserve. M-Gold offered its clients anonymity in sending and receiving funds internationally.

The American authorities would eventually bust Liberty Reserve, shutting down what it called at the time the largest international money laundering operation in history, and putting its CEO, Arthur Berdovsky, behind bars.

That case caught QCX-INT's attention while he was doing his research, prompting him to request hundreds of pages of court documents from the Southern District of New York.

"It was a little bit of a long shot going through that data, but I got a hit," he said. Buried in hundreds of pages of court filings, QCX-INT found Gerald Cotten's email address listed as Midas Gold's contact.

No criminal charges were ever laid against Cotten or Patryn in relation to bitcoin investors dies photo case, but the shuttering of Liberty Reserve effectively put Midas Gold out of business in May

But the two would be back in business later that year, launching a cryptocurrency exchange called QuadrigaCX.

V. Where&#;s the money, Gerry?

While QCX-INT dug up a lot of information on Cotten and Patryn's history prior to forming Quadriga, a motherlode of information about what actually went down at the crypto exchange came through more official channels.

After Quadriga's spectacular collapse in Januarythe Supreme Court of Nova Scotia appointed Ernst and Young to look for the missing quarter of a billion dollars owed to creditors, bitcoin investors dies photo, with the most shocking report released in June The Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) also did their own investigation and released the results of their review in June

What was clear in both of their findings was that Quadriga's asset shortfall was a result of Cotten's fraudulent activity. "What happened at Quadriga was an old-fashioned fraud wrapped in modern technology," the OSC report said.

Cotten created fictitious accounts and was trading at times in fake dollars and fake bitcoin. His largest account was under the alias Chris Markay and at one point, he credited himself with single deposits of $ million and $50 million dollars, respectively. He had other fake accounts, too: Aretwo Deetwo, Seethree Peaohhh — and Sceptre Gerry.

The OSC report also found that in the first year of operation, bitcoin investors dies photo, Cotten was involved in the majority of trades on Quadriga. Unbeknownst to customers, he was the counterparty in more than 87 per cent of the bitcoin trades done on his own company's platform in

“He couldn’t control himself and blew just an absolutely eye-popping amount of money.”

The investigations also uncovered that Cotten mixed customer funds with his own. The Ontario securities regulator found that between andCotten transferred millions of dollars of his clients' funds to his and Robertson's personal accounts to buy multiple properties, and fund their living and travel expenses.

QCX-INT couldn't get that kind of access to Cotten's activities, but he wasn't surprised by the OSC's findings. To QCX-INT, it followed a pattern of "impulsive behaviour."

"He couldn't control himself, by the looks of things, and blew just an absolutely eye-popping amount of money," he said.

The OSC reported that Cotten used his customer funds for speculative trades on other cryptocurrency exchanges. And when the price of bitcoin was crashing, he'd try to make up for losses by essentially gambling customer funds, digging himself into a hole.

"He was an inveterate gambler … an abysmal trader who lost tens of millions on what to look for when investing in cryptocurrency of these speculative trades," QCX-INT said.

So in the end, when customers wanted to withdraw funds, Cotten became dependent on new money coming into the exchange. And the gap between the real and the fake money just got bigger.

"Quadriga was a house of cards, bitcoin investors dies photo, and then it was a Ponzi scheme," said journalist Amy Castor. "I mean, where were the regulators?"

Quadriga had been registered with the British Columbia Securities Commission, which issued a cease trade order inwhen it failed to file financial statements.

It was also registered, in its bitcoin investors dies photo years, with FINTRAC, Canada's money laundering watchdog, as a money service business. The agency would not comment on what it did — if anything — to ensure Quadriga followed regulations. A spokesperson for FINTRAC wrote to CBC that the agency was prohibited by law to disclose that information to the public.

Patryn says he had no idea what Cotten was up to, insisting he parted ways with the company in January over a disagreement with Cotten about listing Quadriga on the Canadian Securities Exchange. The company never did go public, and although Patryn remained a beneficial shareholder — holding more than 18 per cent of the company's shares, bitcoin investors dies photo, according to an affidavit he filed in court — it would appear that Cotten controlled the company from until its collapse.

In a statement released in October in response to the revelations of fraud in the Ernst and Young reports, Jennifer Robertson said she was unaware of Cotten's "improper actions," that "she was not aware of, nor did she participate in Gerry's trading activities, nor his appropriation of customer funds."

She added that she was "upset and disappointed" to learn about what Cotten had been up to.

In a voluntary settlement agreement made in the fall of as part of the company's bankruptcy, Robertson offered to return $12 million worth of assets to Quadriga creditors, assets she says she believed were purchased legitimately with Cotten's earned profits, salary and dividends.

Of the roughly 76, creditors who had money tied up on the exchange, in the end, only 17, bitcoin investors dies photo, made claims. About $46 million was recovered, and each creditor is expected to get about 10 per cent back, although the process is still ongoing.

The RCMP would not comment on the creditors' call to exhume the body, nor would police comment on the ongoing investigation. The FBI is also mum and won't comment until the case is closer to completion.

Creditors who have contacted the RCMP are frustrated by what appears to be a lack of action on the part of the law enforcement agency.

"It's theft," said QCX-INT. "You know, it's like a $million bank job could happen, and bitcoin investors dies photo got a law enforcement agency that does next to nothing about investigating it."

QCX-INT was in contact with a fraud investigator in the RCMP's financial crime unit in the Toronto area, providing him with results of his data investigation and information gathered through sources along the way.

"Even when there is hard evidence of fraud provided to them, you know, they would continually come back and say to us, 'We need more evidence, even in order to investigate,'" he said. "I felt like I actually had to present them with a bloody corpse and a gun with fingerprints on it in order just to get them to investigate."

"I'm not convinced he's dead."

Amy Castor, the journalist, said that Cotten "had been running Ponzi [schemes] from the time he was a kid." Based on what has emerged since his disappearance, "he was operating a massive Ponzi scheme and it was going down in a big way. He knew he'd have to face the piper. So he had to either face maybe going to jail for fraud or find another way out of there."

Without official confirmation from RCMP that the body buried in Halifax is that of Gerald Cotten, suspicions persist about whether he could still be out there.

"I'm not convinced he's dead," Castor said. "I wouldn't be surprised if one day, you know, we saw a press release come out from the U.S. Department of Justice that said he was arrested somewhere. I wouldn't be surprised if other people were implicated in his exit scheme." bitcoin investors dies photo believes the balance of probabilities points to Cotten being dead, but said he'd be happy to be shown otherwise.

In the meantime, he continues to keep an eye on the blockchain. He said funds are still moving in accounts connected to Quadriga, and that the activity is "unusual." He wouldn't elaborate further, for fear of compromising active investigations.

"We are not treating this as closed. There are still individuals out there who we believe have benefited from the fraud of Quadriga. Now, we've got some suspicions about who that might be. And that means that they don't want me to be doing what I'm doing."

With files from Eunice Kim, Yvette Brend and Rignam Wangkhang