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 number. 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, bitcoin investors dies update. "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 to TalkGold, an online forum where he would promote HYIPs, or high yield investment programs. Essentially Ponzi schemes, bitcoin investors dies update, 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 the first ones out. 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, bitcoin investors dies update. 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 just how childlike he was."
Just as one of Sceptre's schemes would dry up, leaving angry investors in the lurch, he five top stocks to invest in 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 linked to Cotten that offered a proxy service that would reroute a user's internet bitcoin investors dies update so that their IP address 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, and your boss or teachers won't know about it!"
During QCX-INT's investigations, 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, bitcoin investors dies update.
The one that struck QCX-INT the most was Cotten taking a $20 bill and melting it in the microwave, bitcoin investors dies update. That video was posted inabout a year bitcoin investors dies update 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 bitcoin investors dies update 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."
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