The Quadriga cryptocurrency exchange saga is in its closing stages now as the Ontario Securities Commission declare that it was an ‘old-fashioned fraud wrapped in modern technology’ - a very succinct, but understatement, way of describing a $215 million fraud.
You will recall that Quadriga was founded by Cotten back in 2013 with his then business partner Michael Patryn in 2013. With Cotten as the sole-named company director he alone had access to the 'wallets; and the money they held for investors. This unregulated scenario allowed Cotten to spend the money at will as if it were his own - he soon started to lead led the lifestyle of a wealthy investment banker with all the associated trappings.
Also noteworthy at this time in 2016 is that, under his original name of Omar Dhanani, Patryn was convicted in the U.S. on money-laundering charges.
Coincidentally, (Do you believe in coincidences? Neither do I!), whilst Cotten was honeymooning in India in 2018 he allegedly died of Crohn’s disease complications- at the same time, back home in Canada, Quadriga users were starting to report around a missing $190 million worth of cryptocurrency.
After his alleged death in late 2018 and Quadriga’s bankruptcy in early 2019 the Ernst & Young are acting as trustees to dig in the dirt to see if there is anything to recover for investors. So far they have only managed to recover $46 million in assets- so where is the remaining £169 million? A question the 100,000 or so duped investors want answered.
They are also still strongly petitioning for the exhumation of the body from an Indian grave - which, under the circumstances, seems a reasonable request to me. After all, in most normal situations when ‘rich’ individuals die overseas is it not the case that they are repatriated for burial? So is it not a little odd that given all the other suspicious factors surrounding Gerald Cotten’s alleged demise that did not happen?