Lawyers for victims of the QuadrigaCX bankruptcy want Cotten’s body exhumed

By Selena 12/16/19 8:27 AM

It seems that the exit story of QuadrigaCX has settled down, but it hasn’t. Law firm Miller Thomson LLP, Toronto, has asked the RCMP’s Commercial Crimes Branch to conduct an autopsy of QuadrigaCX co-founder, Gerald Cotten, to confirm both the identity and the cause of death.

The QuadrigaCX disaster cost $ 190 million

The largest cryptocurrency exchange in Canada, QuadrigaCX, has lost more than $ 190 million in users’ money and was unable to compensate that money for a very tragic reason. It was the CEO of the exchange (Gerald Cotten) who was also the only one who kept the password of the cold storage wallets, suddenly died.

Cotten passed away in December 2018 while traveling in India, carrying only control over the company’s cold wallets containing over $ 150 million worth of coins like Bitcoin and Ethereum and $ 40 million in cash. Because of not being able to compensate users, QuadrigaCX has declared bankruptcy. It seems that the exit story of QuadrigaCX has settled down, but it hasn’t. The lawyer has ordered an autopsy of Cotten to clarify this incident.

The lawyers said they needed to clarify customers’ questions about whether Cotten was dead or not. Therefore, the excavation process should be completed early in the spring of 2020.

The report stated:

“The purpose of this letter is to request, on behalf of the Affected Users, that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (the ‘RCMP’), conduct an exhumation and post-mortem autopsy on the body of Gerald Cotten to confirm both its identity and the cause of death given the questionable circumstances surrounding Mr. Cotten’s death and the significant losses of Affected Users.”

Interested parties attend Nova Scotia Supreme Court in Halifax on Tuesday, Feb. 5, 2019 – Source: THE CANADIAN PRESS/Andrew Vaughan

Is Cotten dead?

Quite a lot of people did not believe in the death of the CEO of QuadrigaCX and were not surprised by the announcement of the debt, hack, … of the exchange. According to them, QuadrigaCX may just be borrowing the fake death of its founder Gerald Cotten to stealing users’ money.

As a result, when QuadrigaCX revealed that it lost nearly half a billion dollars more in cryptocurrency to the hands of an inaccessible wallet, quite a few people could not hold back the ridicule.

Richard Niedermayer, Jennifer Robertson’s lawyer – wife Gerald Cotten – said that Jennifer was very heartbroken to know about the request to exhume her husband’s grave.

Niedermayer stated:

“Gerald Cotten died on December 9, 2018, in India. That’s the confirmation from an independent investigation by the Globe and Mail this earlier this year. And should not be in doubt. While Ms. Jennifer has assisted the Quadriga Affected Users in the recovery of assets and has cooperated fully with Ernst and Young’s investigation, it is not clear how the exhumation of an autopsy to confirm the cause of Cotten’s death from complications arising from his Crohn’s disease would assist the asset recovery process further.”

In a deal announced in October, Jennifer and Cotten agreed to return about $ 12 million to help repay the exchange users. Assets include holdings in Nova Scotia and British Columbia, a small plane, “luxury vehicles,” a sailing boat, investments, and cash, along with gold and silver coins.

Tracking creditor Ernst and Young found in an investigation that the exchange had corrupted financial statements, and significant amounts of cryptocurrency were transferred to Cotten-controlled personal accounts. It has found losses from transactions and fees in those accounts affecting QuadrigaCX’s reserves, while Cotten also created fake accounts to increase revenue figures.