Yeah, the huge amount of personal assets is curious. I now have to wonder how much is squirreled away in a proverbial Swiss numbered account?
Not sure why this was bumped, but since it was: has there been any independent confirmation that his death was real? It’d be pretty easy to buy off a coroner or whoever in Jaipur. The whole thing sounds kinda suspicious.
This cite seems to imply that his body was shipped back to Nova Scotia.
Just thought it was an interesting development - that his widow has such a large amount of assets, and that she has voluntarily surrendered them to the trustee.
Makes me think (as a complete outside observer) that the trustee was able to trace the source of those assets, and the Widow Cotten didn’t think she could defend her possession. It’s pretty rare to voluntarily give up $12,000,000.
Everything how about him is fake. His real name is Gerald Nylen.
She said that Cotten had used his own money to pay some withdrawals, which was a mistake, as it meant he was comingling person and business funds. I think she said that to reduce the attacks and threats she was getting, but it backfired as it gave E&Y leverage.
She didn’t work much, and used her husband’s money to buy property. Cotten got virtually no money anywhere other than QuadrigaCX, so in essence her estate and the majority of her money is stolen property. I don’t think the agreement was entirely voluntary. I think Ernst & Young strong-armed her into giving up the funds.
She is shady. While she probably had little knowledge of the company itself, her company acted as one of the payment processors, and after her husband died, she started selling his assets (such as his private airplane) and asked the other parties involved to keep her husband’s death a secret. It took more than a month before Quadriga’s customers found out Mr. Cotten had died. Naturally some of them had invested between Cotten’s death and the announcement, and will be lucky to get 5% of their investment back. I think she wanted to sell the assets and disappear, but the lawyer helping her with this had to quit.
Does Canada have a Proceeds of Crime Act like we have in the UK?
Criminals often seem to end up with large amounts of cash which modern money-laundering legislation makes hard to dispose of. This means that they use it to buy stuff like yaghts and mansions, as well as jewelerry and precious metals.
Yes: the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) Act:
So, you CAN take it with you, now…!? 
(Maybe that’s why it is called cryptocurrency… :D)
Looks like the crypt will be opened . . .
How very interesting. Please keep us informed.
Looks like at least one securities commission has decided that crypto falls within their legislative mandate. The BC Securities Commission has investigated at least three crypto exchanges. That is a change from their initial position, which was they didn’t have jurisdiction: https://www.crowdfundinsider.com/2019/11/153794-report-third-vancouver-crypto-exchange-investigated-by-bc-securities-regulators/
Reading beteween the lines of the article, it looks like the BCSC decided that if a crypto exchange is taking in money from clients, using the money to buy crypto which has speculative value, holding the crypto for the clients, with a contractual obligation to repay in full, then it’s potentially a type of security.
I’ve seen some reported cases going the other way in other provinces, so it may be a combination of the wording of the statutes in each province, coupled with an assessment of whether the business model of crypto-exchanges is akin to other types of securities.
The entire Cotten - Quadriga saga, and the amount of money involved, may have been a factor in that re-evaluation by the BCSC.
In the uSA they’d be called MSBs and be regulated by FinCEN and the iRS.
And for what it’s worth, there’s no doubt at all that he stole the money. Wallets that only he had the private key to were drained. The question is just whether he’s still alive, or faked his death. And possibly, who owns the wallets that he drained them to.
Reports showed the money was stored on other exchanges, some of whom will probably not cooperate, and furthermore much of the money was lost trading. I don’t think Cotten had any “full” cold wallets left. Had he survived, his income from the scheme would probably drop, and he would have pulled the plug.
A request was made to exhume the body, but realistically, he is actually dead. Being a con artist doesn’t make him immune to disease, after all; his death revealed the con.
Or, was his death faked after he had drained enough away to other wallets to have a comfortable existence?
While the SDMB was down, I was noodlng around on news articles and found a few interesting articles about the late (is he?) Mr Cotten. Thought I’d share the links.
First, an article from last spring from the Globe and Mail, giving a very detailed account of Cotten’s trip to India and how he is reputed to have died, possibly from a perforated bowel brought on by Crohn’s disease:
Next, a story from November, again from the Globe and Mail, about Cotten’s antecedents. They started digging into Cotten’s life before Quadriga, and discovered that at the age of 15, Cotten was involved in running Ponzi schemes on-line:
And then, a story from Vanity Fair, exploring the different explanations for how Quadriga collapsed. They offer three scenarios: “Gerry Tries to Make Good”; “Gerry the Royal Fuckup”; and “Gerry the Mastermind”. They leave it open, but lean towards Gerry the Mastermind, who steadily withdrew funds and stashed them in overseas bank accounts until his getaway:
That was the conclusion in a report by Ernst and Young, the court-appointed third party reviewer:
The thread on the lost password to a bitcoin wallet reminded me that there was a final report on the Quadriga mess last spring from the Ontario Securities Commission, which concluded that Quadriga was a good old-fashioned Ponzi scheme, using modern technology.
Interesting that the graphic in the article for “Where did the money go?” is a donut chart instead of the traditional pie. I guess the money disappeared through the hole.