It was quickly very clear that he wasnt who he said he was. When it came to the case of the missing Quadriga millions, however, the balance was reversed. Or Michael from Italy. We are not sure about the diagnosis, he said. It is a priority for CBC to create products that are accessible to all in Canada including people with visual, hearing, motor and cognitive challenges. But within a month after Cottens reported death, blockchain investigators proved that nearly all of the inaccessible wallets were empty. It served as an independent payment processor for Liberty Reserve: a digital currency that was operated by an American in Costa Rica and used by drug cartels, human traffickers, child pornographers, and Ponzis to launder money. Cotten, 26 at the time, said he worked in bitcoin. Gerald Cotten. Cottens reputation as a cryptocurrency true believer survived his death on December 9, 2018. You don'thave like Aaron Matthews [Quadriga's director of operations] or anybody that would be able tokeep the company on? Investing with Quadriga was even patriotic: People like the fact were located in Canada, Cotten told an interviewer, a point he often emphasized. But users claimed they received deposits from Jennifer directly, seemingly contradicting her statement. The couples marriage came around when Bitcoins value began to plummet, leading to customers wanting to withdraw their money from QuadrigaCX. "I hadn't understood how Quadriga had held money in the first place;I thought it was just a trade," she said. He rejected Quadrigas application and forwarded his investigation to contacts in law enforcement. The global enforcement action we announce today is an important step toward reining in the Wild West of illicit internet banking, said Preet Bharara, then the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. When Canadian blockchain whiz Gerald Cotten died unexpectedly last year, hundreds of millions of dollars in investor funds vanished into the crypto ether. Both men soon graduated, however. But it was not easy to buy or sell if you lacked technological sophistication and considerable patience. It put us in a particular place of need.. It was the largest online money-laundering case in American history: Liberty Reserves 5.5 million user accounts had conducted 78 million transactions worth more than $8 billion. The most successful of these was Midas Gold, incorporated in early 2008. At the time, he was the CEO of QuadrigaCX, a company that performed cryptocurrency exchanges. But in February 2018, his. Once he left it behind on the Gulliver, which caused a momentary hysteria as the yacht had already departed the dock. But it was too much too fast: The young, inexperienced cryptocurrency purist was overwhelmed, beset by coding errors, scrutiny from banks, incompetent contractors, and crooked payment processors. She said she wants to move on with her life and hopes her new book, BitCoin Widow: Love, Betrayal and the Missing Millions, is the final chapter of the Quadrigascandal. Roberston said she's sorry for Cotten's actions and the harm he's caused. On his personal YouTube channel (account name Gerryrulz) he had posted several dozen homemade videos as infantile as they were portentous: Gerry incinerating a $20 bill in his microwave; Gerry knocking over a Jenga tower with a giant teddy bear; Gerry stuck in an amusement park maze, repeating the same mistakes, unable to escape. Sign up for our daily Hive newsletter and never miss a story. Were excited, said Cotten at the time, to be able to provide an unparalleled level of transparency.. Canadian Press. The same blind faith that attracts the marks also drives them away. Gerry was a very careful person who well understood the need to back up ones private keys. Gerald Cotten lied to thousands of investors in his crypto exchange, and deceived his wife Jennifer Robertson, a new book claims. In the aftermath, Jennifer agreed to return $12 million from the estate as part of a settlement. Closed Captioning and Described Video is available for many CBC shows offered on CBC Gem. It was a gentle, unflappable smile. Not least due to the fact that allegedly only Cotten knew the passwords to the cold wallets worth nearly $ 190 million. On Dec.1, 2016, Nova Scotia's Royal Gazette announced she was changing her name from Jennifer Kathleen Margaret Griffith to her current name, Jennifer Kathleen Margaret Robertson. He would count on most people to forget all about him. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. Before doctors could stabilize him, his heart stopped; he was revived, and his heart stopped again. When search suggestions are available use up and down arrows to review and enter to select. Nova Scotia's property registry shows Robertson, her husbandand her company bought 16 properties between May 2016 and October 2018, ranging in price from $94,000for a waterfront lot in Lunenburg County to $2.5 million for nine row houses in Bedford. In the fall of 2016, Bitcoin began its wild rise. From our perspective, we needed Quadriga, says Andrew Wagner, who at the time was the co-ops director of public relations. Cotten flushed. Cotten's company, QuadrigaCX, expanded exponentially, and the twentysomethings soon became wealthy beyond their wildest dreams. A death in Cryptoland: The story of Gerald Cotten and QuadrigaCX, Quadriga CEO's widow on his death, the missing crypto millions and what she did and didnt know. Government records also reveal that Robertson has used three family names. Investigative journalists Amy Castor and Takara Small have spent years following and reporting on the Quadriga scandal. Robertson said something Cotten said around the time they were drawing up the will didn't sit right with her. And I'll carry that shame with me, probably, every single day for the rest of my life," she said. Essentially, Gerry gambled away customer money through trading. He was driven to a private hospital and diagnosed with acute gastroenteritis. Mueller didnt understand how a federal convict had been able to change his name, continue to operate, and escape charges. The Protocol Exploring the tech behind crypto. The circumstances around Cotten's sudden death left investorswith questions. A quadriga is a chariot yoked to four horses abreast. In a small, inefficient market, Quadriga swiftly distinguished itself. She wanted to sell the Gulliver. Closed Captioning and Described Video is available for many CBC shows offered on CBC Gem. Additional investigations were begun by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police; the FBI; and at least two other law enforcement agencies that have not been publicly disclosed (though one of them is likely a federal agency in Japan). What if the furious trading on other exchanges near the end of his life was not careless but calculated? Seasick marine biologist, turned journalist. In December 2018, Cotten died during his honeymoon with his wife, Jennifer Robertson, in Jaipur, India. It just seemed so out of character for Gerry not to have any kind of backup plan, says Michael Perklin, who started the worlds first blockchain security consultancy and had worked for CaVirTex. This would have been a startling about-face; in the early days, those who knew them believed that the company belonged to Patryn, with Cotten serving as a front man. It was also revealed that Cotten had written his will just four days before leaving for India. In October 2004, TalkGold members began to debate whether Patryn might in fact be Omar Dhanani, one of 28 suspects who had been arrested by the U.S. Secret Service in a global sting operation targeting an online marketplace for stolen credit card information and forged documents. There were forums promoting promising new HYIPs; scam warnings; advice on creating ones own Ponzi, or how to get out early enough to profit; and offers of payment to boost fraudulent schemes on the site. His death left investors locked out of their money and left Jennifer Robertson, Gerry's wife, to deal with the fallout. She has co-authored a book titled Bitcoin Widow: Love, Betrayal and the Missing Millions that details her experiences with Gerry. His wife, Jennifer Robertson, said he promised to create a mechanism that would give her the passwords after his death. The official cause of death was complications from Crohns disease, but the gastroenterologist who treated Cotten told the Globe and Mail that the death still haunted him. All rights reserved. His name was Gerald Cotten, and he went by Gerry; his girlfriend was a property manager named Jennifer Robertson, or Jen; her two Chihuahuas, who liked to sun themselves on the deck as the. Less than three months later, the Quadriga Fund was dead, and Quadriga CX went live. He was described as an ex-business partner who had met Cotten online over five years ago. He was like a ray of sunshine, Patryn told the interviewer. After Gerrys death became public, she maintained that the attorneys decided to hold off on announcing it earlier. The brutal murders of four Idaho college students shocked millions. A yacht salesman never asked what customers were looking to spend, or whether they had ever been on a yacht, let alone knew how to operate one. The court-appointed monitor, Ernst & Young, employed cryptocurrency experts but was roundly ridiculed for a string of blunders that began when, shortly after seizing control of Quadrigas remaining funds, approximately $1 million was inadvertently transferred to one of the accounts that Cottens death rendered inaccessible. If you blur your eyes, this narrativeGerry Tries to Make Goodnearly coheres. It was a terrible, terrible moment., She mostly remained away from the public spotlight apart from interview appearances in January 2022. The Protocol Exploring the tech behind crypto. [4] In her memoir, Bitcoin Widow: Love . It looked hollow.. In January 2014 Salkeld posted a video on YouTube in which Cotten gently teaches his young daughters how to operate the Bitcoin ATM; Salkeld is certain that his two-year-old is the youngest person ever to have purchased Bitcoin. He befriended Cotten in 2016 in Toronto, where Cotten had moved during the effort to take Quadriga public. The Nova Scotia Supreme Court declared the company bankrupt and selected the accounting firm Ernst & Young to serve as its third-party monitor, responsible for securing the lost funds belonging to Quadrigas creditors. In this version of the story, scams beget scams and incompetence snowballs into recklessness and squander. Forensically examining Instagram accounts, interviews, and police reports, author Kathleen Hale reconstructs their relationship, and ultimately Petitos murder. Matt Galloway talks to his widow, Jennifer Robertson, about what she did and didnt know. . Dhanani, who was known on another message board as an expert in washing funds, was arrested in Southern California, where he was living with his family. The series delved into the plight of the endangered North Atlantic Right Whale. After learning of his death, one of his contractors immediately went to the house and searched for it. This was the detail that most shocked cryptocurrency professionals. The smiling boy wanted a big boat. [3] Robertson's first marriage, to Jacob Forgernon, ended in divorcer. In its registration documents, Midas Gold listed as its contact gerald.cotten@gmail.com. But it came from a place of organizationhe knew what he was doing. He might be living on a private island, or in Hong Kong, Thailand, or Monaco, traveling by yacht and helicopter and private jet. Hes what youd call, says Mueller, a real motherfucker.. They were to sponsor an orphanage in the country as well. Twelve properties are currently held by Robertson Nova Property Management Ltd., a company registered toRobertson's home address. It promised within 48 hours (usually within 18) a return of 103% to 150%, possibly more. In its prospectus, Cotten wrote: Im afraid Im not going to fill this section of the page with the usual bumph about how your returns are made. Midas Gold was an intermediary between Liberty Reserve and its traders, transferring cash into digital currency and back again, ensuring that no centralized record of clients existed. And Ill carry that shame with me, probably, every single day for the rest of my life.. Netflix's latest true crime doc, "Trust No One: The Hunt for the Crypto King", seeks to unravel the mystery of Gerald Cotten, the CEO of crypto exchange QuadrigaCX, who died in 2018. Cotten knew the catchphrases and the talking points, but he seemed most interested in Bitcoins speculative possibilities. Cotten, it turned out, had transferred the funds into personal accounts on competitor exchanges. The Instagram account belonging to Jennifer Robertson showed that since 2016 shed taken trips to Macchu Pichu, Dubai, Oman, Myanmar, the Maldives, and Rio de Janeiro, often in private jets. The broad outlines of his story were blandly conventional, at least if you subtracted his interest in decentralized monetary systems. The median price for the properties was$346,000. He wore a wrinkled golf shirt, cargo shorts, and beat-up Birkenstocks, and he was obscenely young, with sandy hair and pale skin that appeared not to have seen sunlight since puberty. But he never did. Whats your goal? replied the yacht salesman, in the delicate manner of his trade. When S&S suspended operations three months later, taking most of its clients funds with it, Patryn took to TalkGold to defend Cottens integrity. Around this time, Patryn changed the slug that appeared beneath his TalkGold posts to: The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Benjamin Franklin.. It'd be a form of closure for some people," said Small. The public bid was a last-ditch effort to salvage a flailing Ponzi, exploiting positive press and public sympathy to bilk money from investors. The company took a cut from every Bitcoin trade on its platform. However, the couple never arrived at the house, and the honeymoon did not go as planned. ^ "Quadriga CEO's widow speaks out over his death and the missing crypto millions". Robertson isn't under investigation and has never faced criminal charges. Gerry and Alex [Hanin, a web developer] created and ran Quadriga, with Gerry running operations.) By 2015, however, the same information that the TalkGold community had gleaned a decade earlier was starting to surface on Reddit: that Michael Patryn was really Omar Dhanani, a convicted thief and defrauder with ties to organized crime. By that point, however, a new Gerald Cotten venture was already six months old. One Quadriga contractor claims today that the payment processor WB21, now the subject of federal lawsuits in the United States, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom, stole $14 million, and that another processor stole $5.8 million. At least some of those accounts had also been emptied. In April 2013, around the time that Cotten appeared in Vancouver, the price of a Bitcoin had risen to $266. Jennifer met Gerry in November 2014 on Tinder. Jennifer Robertson, whose husband Gerald Cotten died aged 30 during their honeymoon in India in 2018, opened up about her ordeal in a new book, Bitcoin Widow: Love, Betrayal and the Missing Millions. Seventy percent of the global Bitcoin trade was conducted through Mt. Cotten rarely brought up his work, but details emerged. Pitbull is a pal, Carbone is for dinner, and, The Idaho Murders, Part 1: How 4 College Kids Lived and Loved. (In response to these allegations, Patryn denied the existence of check printing machines and pay stubs and suggested that visitors to the office were confused by scanners and cash counters.). He was accompanied by a girlfriend who drove her own Jeep. In HYIP chat rooms, Cotten and Patryn defended each other against angry investors and posed as satisfied clients of each others various businesses; Patryns tended to be payment processors, Cottens were marginally more sophisticated iterations of S&S Investments. Cotten may be hoping Robertson will join him once all the investigations have concluded, or she may be just another one of his victims. They struck the yacht salesman as a couple youd less likely see at Scaramouche than in a Walmart parking lot. It begins with a few findings that do not fit neatly into the Royal Fuckup narrative. Cotten himself warned of this danger during a 2014 interview. Needless to say, the fund's clients were thoroughly disappointed. Call it the Mastermind Theory. She was apologetic about people losing their money, saying, I would have never, ever stolen from other people. When offered an electric motor for the life raft, the smiling boy gestured to his Tesla in the marinas parking lot. So, if youre curious to find out more, weve got you covered. She decided that his involvement might mean that Quadriga was legitimate after all. Their companies websites often shared registration information and were operated by the same computers. "I saw Gerry die, I was holding his hand when he passed away. When Patryn told a stupid joke that nobody found funny, Cotten would burst into wild laughter. It took some time for him to grow on her, but they eventually fell in love. Eric Schletz, the pilot who brokered Cottens purchase of the Cessna 400, has described having seen Cotten walking through an airport with $50,000 in cash. He ran the business from his MacBook Pro, which he always carried with him. In December 2018, Jennifer and Gerry traveled to Jaipur, India, for their honeymoon. Patryn had said that Cotten was like a little brother to me. This was how those who had known both of them saw it too, though the characterization usually wasnt intended as a compliment. Overnight, Quadriga became Canadas dominant Bitcoin marketplace. After his release in 2007, he was deported to Canada. And exhuming the body would be a really huge step. Jennifer Kathleen Margaret Robertson (born 1988 as Jennifer Griffith [2] [1]) is a Canadian real estate developer best known as the heir and widow of the CEO of the controversial QuadrigaCX cryptocurrency exchange. It seemed like they had an understanding, and shared motives. OFFICE SPACE But it was his past that, early on, became the focus of the Quadriga investigation. According to an investigation by Canada's Globe and Mail, Cotten. She froze and said something about having to shampoo her cats. Jennifer now lives in Halifax in Nova Scotia, Canada, with her two pet dogs. 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. "He was the nicest, caring, most loving husband. I spent a couple of hours on the phone explaining the basics to an RCMP investigator and came away feeling like hed be much more comfortable with a dead body, a loaded gun, and a trail of blood.. In October 2013, Cotten placed a job posting on an online forum, BlackHatWorld, that marketed frauds and stolen goods. There were also the Lexus and the zippy single-engine airplane, a Cessna 400, which hed never tried to fly. He named his boat the Gulliver, after the traveler who trusted himself to the mercy of the waves and swam as fortune directed him. Newsweek Newsletter sign-up > They married four years later in October 2018, living a. All of it looked bad, but there was no confession of criminality. "I just really hated the questions, like, it seemed that I should have known," Robertson told CBC's Andrew Chang. Quadrigas corporate accounts did trade tens of millions of dollars worth of Bitcoin with accounts connected to known Ponzi schemes and illegal marketplaces. Quadriga Fund claimed to be operated by four (unnamed) investment managers. He was 30-years-old. Gerald "Gerry" Cotten died in 2018, taking with him a password to access funds Photo credit: Netflix. With that, Bitcoin became like any other form of currency, a mass delusion: Its value derived from the belief that it had value. Under the most charitable interpretation of Cottens actions, the public bid marks the moment that he decided to go straight. The first Bitcoin block was created on January 3, 2009, and the currency gained economic value on May 22, 2010, a date enshrined in Bitcoin lore as Pizza Day, when a Florida man paid someone in England 10,000 Bitcoins to order him two pizzas from Papa Johns. Much of Quadrigas riseand Bitcoinshad been fueled by speculation from greenhorns who had heard something exciting about cryptocurrency from their nephew or cable news. A year later, Canadas largest exchange, CaVirTex, announced its closure, also blaming hackers; the second-largest exchange, Vault of Satoshi, closed the same week. Was Quadriga built to last, in other words, or built to self-destruct? As it turned out, Michael Patrynas Michael Perklin and nearly everyone in the close-knit Canadian cryptocurrency community had known for yearswas not really Michael Patryn. Cottens generosity helped to compensate for a social aloofness that, despite his implacable cheerfulness, prevented him from developing close relationships. "I did let that go to the lawyers and the contractors, and I trusted that they knew what to do," she said. He seemed to prefer acquaintances over friends. He used to say he didnt open up to many people, but he was able to open up to me.. The amateurs most valuable advantage is time. He credited fake Quadriga accounts with fake funds but made actual trades by betting on cryptocurrency value. (TalkGold was run by twins Edward and Brian Krassenstein until 2016, when agents from the Office of Homeland Security seized their files and froze their assets but never charged them with a crime. In leaked text messages sent before his death, Cotten bragged about his extravagances (Im still cleaning the mess from our fondue party we had on the weekend lol); mentioned having a safe bolted to the rafters in the attic; joked about retiring soon; and referred to his honeymoon in scare quotes. 2023 Cond Nast. Cotten built his career on the insight that most people are willing to believe most of what they are told most of the time. It was not built, in its early days, to make money. "Whenever people put their money into the exchange, he sort of used it as his personal slush fund," she said. Patryn told reporters after Cottens death that they had met online over five years ago, but this was about as accurate as calling himself an adviser to Quadriga when in fact he had been the cofounder. Nobody knew how to find the money. He might even be eating cheeseburgers and drinking beer. It's not clear if the Nova Scotiaproperties will be caught up in the efforts byQuadriga'sclients to recoup their losses. Best Known As Gerald Cotten's Wife Jennifer Robertson's Husband Died On Their Honeymoon Cotten's Death Had The Crypto World In A Frenzy Has Disappeared From The Limelight Gerald Cotten was the founder of QuadrigaCX, once Canada's largest cryptocurrency exchange. According to her, Gerry was in charge of the accounts by then. Upon pleading guilty to conspiring to transfer stolen identification documents, he was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison. His death left investors locked out of their money and left Jennifer Robertson, Gerrys wife, to deal with the fallout. He began his own HYIP chat site by December, and on January 1, 2004he was 15 and a halfhe launched his first pyramid scheme, S&S Investments. In this way Cotten could have stowed away a fortune in foreign bank accounts in preparation for a grand exit. ', "And he was like, 'No, I'm the only one with banking connections, I'm the only one that knows how to work it.' I love electric. The whole thing would cost $600,000, but expense never came uponly safety. There is yet another possibility, one that none of the cases investigators is willing to discount. Vanity Fair may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. Nobody followed up with him. It is a priority for CBC to create products that are accessible to all in Canada including people with visual, hearing, motor and cognitive challenges. Quadriga Fintech Solutions Corp. shut down in January following the death of founder and Chief Executive Officer Gerald Cotten, leaving some 115,000 customers out of pocket for about $260 million in cryptocurrencies and cash.
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