Gerald Cotten, who died a year ago, ran the Canadian company which accounts had drained about $140 million a few months before his death
Attorneys representing accountants on the Canadian Bitcoin Quadriga Exchange are asking Canadian authorities to remove the body of the company’s founder, Gerald Cotten, from his grave and check again if it is Cotten’s body.
Cotten, 30, who also served as CEO of Quadriga, died abruptly last year while on honeymoon in Jaipur, India, with his wife, Jennifer Robertson.
of complications from Crohn’s Disease in December 2018 while traveling in India. Quadriga was managed almost exclusively by Cotten through his laptop.
At the time, Quadriga, formerly Canada’s largest cryptographic money exchange company, announced that it was unable to access digital assets. At least $ 145 million remains frozen in Cotten’s accounts.
Following the death of Cotten, Quadriga collapsed and more than 100,000 investors lost their money. In April, Quadriga announced that the Nova Scotia Supreme Court had issued a closing order declaring it bankrupt.
Lawyer Miller Thompson on Friday asked the Canadian police for the corpse removal and surgery “to confirm her identity and cause of death, due to the uncertainty surrounding his death, and the large losses of users affected,” the request said.
Much of Quadriga’s money is stored offline in accounts known as “cold wallets,” which is a method of protecting them from hackers. Cotten was the only person who had access to these wallets, according to the company. An expert recruited by the company tried to break into Cotten’s computer but without success. Cotten’s widow, Jennifer Robertson, wife claimes he had left no business-related documents behind.
According to a statement submitted by Robertson, Cotten had “full responsibility for managing the capital and currencies,” so no other employee had access to the stored capital.
“The will specifically states that his wife Robertson was authorized to access his digital assets and “obtain, access, modify, delete and control (his) passwords and other electronic credentials”, The Weekly Voice reported
Nova Scotia Court has appointed financial services firm Ernst & Young to oversee Quadriga’s efforts to help investors. A June report said that about $190 million (about US$143 million) was depleted a few months before Cotten died.
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