Investors demand cryptocurrency millionaire’s corpse is EXHUMED after rumours he faked death and ran off with cash
JILTED investors in a cryptocurrency firm are demanding the body of the company’s founder be EXHUMED amid fears he faked his own death.
Gerald Cotten, 30, of Vancouver, Canada, held the virtual keys to a whopping $137 million (£103m) in online currency kept in “digital wallets,” when he died suddenly in December 2018.
QuadrigaCX founder Cotton, who it is claimed passed away while on honeymoon in India due to complications of Crohn’s Disease, was the sole person with passwords to the wallets, the reports.
According to reports, only $25m of the funds have been recovered leaving many of the now defunct Canadian firm’s 115,000 investors penniless.
Rumors have been swirling online that Cotten faked his own death and ran off with the funds after an investigation by Ernt & Young alleged the businessman had created Quadriga accounts under different names.
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The probe found that “substantial funds” were transferred to the 30-year-old - whose business was based in Vancouver.
His name was also misspelled on his death certificate by the Rajasthan hospital in India - where forged documents are easy to obtain, reports .
This has prompted lawyers for some QuadrigaCX customers to demand Canadian authorities dig up Cotten’s remains and carry out an autopsy on the corpse “to confirm both its identity and the cause of death.”
The furious investors claim new information “further highlight(s) the need for certainty around the question of whether Mr Cotten is in fact deceased.”
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It’s unclear how an exhumation would help people get their money back, Cotten’s widow, Jennifer Robertson, said in a statement to the BBC via her lawyer.
She “is heartbroken to learn of this request,” adding her late husband’s death “should not be in doubt,” according to the statement.
The QuadrigaCX scandal is the second major crypto-scandal to hit the esoteric market.
In October 2017, self-proclaimed CryptoQueen, Ruja Ignatova, disappeared after bilking investors of more than $400 million dollars in her OneCoin scam.
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