But his lies were convincing enough he operated without detection for years under the eyes of regulators, creditors, and even his own wife. Jennifer Robertson, Cottens widow, said her husband moved most of the digital assets to cold storage, and experts she brought in to try to hack into his other computers and mobile phone met with only limited success. Attempts to circumvent an encrypted USB key have been foiled, she said in the court filing. FORTUNE is a trademark of Fortune Media IP Limited, registered in the U.S. and other countries. Robertson couldnt access Cottens devices, which meant that she along with everybody else was locked out of Quadriga. Robertson had already been briefly married to another man, whom shed divorced; now, single again, she was on the dating app. Gerry was. "I do not want to lose sight of the fact that Gerald was a person and there was a widow left behind and a family grieving," the filmmaker said. Since Cotten's death, there have been numerous conspiracies that it was all part of an orchestrated "exit scam" and he is still alive today. Jennifer Robertson speaks with CTV's Your Morning, Tuesday, Jan. 18, 2022. In the film, the question arises of whether a mechanism was setup where, for example, if someone doesn't put their password in for 30 days, the private keys can be sent to someone else. Robertson, who married Cotten in June 2018, agreed yesterday to return about C$12 million of assets to Quadriga as part of a voluntary settlement, which still requires court approval. Back at home, they were investing in equally luxurious real estate. Thirty-year-old Mr Cotten passed away a year ago following . She was just as flabbergasted as everyone else, opening computers and homes for searches by police and still learning little about what ultimately became of all that money. A Canadian bank froze another $21m of funds. Can AI govern financial regulation fully? Jennifer Robertson, Cotten's widow, said her husband moved most of the digital assets to cold storage, and experts she brought in to try to hack into his other computers and mobile phone met . The sudden death of Gerald Cotten in December 2018 plunged the world of cryptocurrency into chaos. His news career began on the morning of Sept. 3, 1998 following the crash of Swissair 111. Not to be transparent about where the money is exactly on a blockchain is unusual, said Christine Duhaime, a Canadian lawyer specializing in anti-money laundering. As part of Quadriga's temporary legal protection under the Companies Creditors Arrangement Act, Ernst & Young, an independent monitor, found Quadriga did not have an official bank account and instead processed its payments through third parties and was run from Cotten's laptop from his home in Fall River, Nova Scotia, according to The New York Times. In the background, there werent the sounds of waves lapping on a remote island, or Gerry Cotten yet living, but a baby fussing and needing its mom. She also didnt know what Bitcoin was, so she wasnt exactly bowled over by him telling her than he ran a Bitcoin exchange. She started dabbling in cryptocurrency with QuadrigaCX and saw the notice that Cotten had passed away and everything was frozen. In October 2018, Jennifer Robertson was living the life of her dreams. The median price for the properties was$346,000. Howell beats Hartland for girls basketball district title. The Clark County Emergency Management Agency is asking residents within a 1,000 feet of the train derailment in Clark County to shelter in place. Shed just married her best friend, Gerald Gerry Cotten, at a ceremony in a Scottish castle; she had recently started a business managing property; and, using the money from Cottens stupendously profitable Bitcoin exchange, she and Cotten had spent that past couple years traveling the world in high style, visiting everywhere from Malta to Dubai to Morocco to Paris. How did Jennifer Robertson and Gerry Cotten meet? Canadian Tong Zou is one QuadrigaCX creditorfeatured in Dead Man's Switch a crypto mystery, who lost his life savings, more than $500,000, and had to sell his apartment in San Francisco to try to crawl out of debt. Perhaps the central argument for the ascendancy of cryptocurrency is its supposed transparency: every transaction made with bitcoin is logged on a public ledger called the blockchain, though the identity of the trader isnt always clear. Jennifer Robertson, Cotten's widow, hastily filed for creditor protections in Nova Scotia. Pseudonyms will no longer be permitted. Moreover, 6 Bitcoin wallets of the exchange turned out to be completely empty. Cotten died later that same year of complications from Crohn's disease, when the couple was on a honeymoon in India. could be sentient says Microsofts chatbot feels like watching the A cruise company is making a big play for remote workers to sail around the world for just $30,000 a year, CA Notice at Collection and Privacy Notice, Do Not Sell/Share My Personal Information. Financial hardships of QuadrigaCX Back in 2018, the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce froze the fiat accounts of the exchange and the funds on them . Robertson said that her new book is very clear about her mental health struggles in the hopes that her experiences will help others going through something difficult make a turnaround. All Rights Reserved. 29 2022, Published 3:03 p.m. But his 2018 death in India left lenders with no way to access the cash - and a new Netflix documentary delves into the rumours around his disappearance. Without being able to read her mind, its impossible to really know what happened. I found it extremely concerning that in the few years leading up to his passing, he got his pilots license, he learned how to opposite the biggest yacht you can have without a crew, said Jen Zegel, a trusts and estates lawyer from Kleinbard LLC, who wrote a book using Quadriga as a case study of mismanagement. Jennifer Robertson, whose husband Gerald Cotten died aged 30 during their honeymoon in India in 2018, has spoken out The widow of a Canadian Bitcoin entrepreneur who died suddenly, leaving. They bought a $600,000 yacht, a high-end Lexus, 17 homes and a private plane, all while jet-setting between Paris, Hawaii and Morocco. The fired Google engineer who thought its A.I. Heres what happened to Jennifer Robertson, the wife of the notorious Bitcoin scammer featured in Trust No One. 3 Kansas 75-59. https://t.co/5rvGZ2BfLV. Jennifer Robertson is the widow of Gerald Cotten, who died suddenly in India in December, leaving his business in chaos and as much as $180 million of cryptocurrency locked in his encrypted laptop and USB keys. Nine days later Cotten is believed to have died due to complications of Crohn's disease, with Robertson announcing the death publicly a month later. 2022-03-31 11:00:00 - Paris/Prancis. Discover something new every day from News, Sports, Finance, Entertainment and more! Cotten QuadrigacxGerald W. Cotten129Keyword1.91.45 . Cotten, who died on December 9, 2018, from complications of Crohn's disease, took with him to the grave up to CA$250 million ($200 million) in cryptocurrency as well as the passwords to the funds which were held offline in cold wallets. Cotten was a computer nerd who had entered the right business at the right time and succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. Find out more about cryptocurrencies below.. News Group Newspapers Limited in England No. Back in 2018, 30-year-old Cotten took a trip to India with his now widow Jennifer Robertson for their honeymoon and to open an orphanage. Gerald Cotten was a like a dream to . Cottens will itemizes a host of high-end assets that are now under Robertsons control. Netflix's new series Trust No One: The Hunt For the Crypto King will delve into Cotten's rapid ascent in the world of Bitcoin and his shocking demise. [3] Robertson's first marriage, to Jacob Forgernon, ended in divorcer. After his wife, Jennifer Robertson, announced his death on Facebook in January 2019, conspiracy theories quickly began circulating amongst Quadriga users who believed Cotten wasn't dead at. Join half a million readers enjoying Newsweek's free newsletters. Jennifer Robertson tells frustrated investors that exhuming her late husband's body would 'do nothing to help with the asset recovery process' December 18 2019. The Kansas City Chiefs tight end makes his hosting debut, with Kelsea Ballerini as musical guest. At first, like many wives, she defended her husband. The one amazing thing about blockchains is that anyone can audit, in essence, any company.. However, things took a turn as the business matured. The filmmaker speaks to several cryptocurrency experts in the film, in addition to reporters who covered QuadrigaCX extensively before, during and after Cotten's death, and people who were directly impacted and lost significant amounts of money. Read more to find out how Robertson and Cotten met, what happened to Robertson after his death, and where she is now. In the end, I ended up losing everything. Jennifer Robertson was the wife of Gerald Cotten, aka "The Crypto King," whose sudden death is the focus of Netflix's latest true-crime documentary "Trust No One: The Hunt for the Crypto King." Cottens duplicity is the subject of Trust No One: The Hunt for the Crypto King, the latest in Netflixs growing library of documentaries about scam artists. Jennifer Robertson and Gerald Cotten's wedding took place in Scotland. As heard in Trust No One, some people believe he faked his death or has changed his name and appearance to remain undetected. View our online Press Pack. One of the major questions the film poses is whether or not Robertson knew about Cottens scheme before he died. Once Canada's largest cryptocurrency exchange, co-founded by Cotten in 2013, QuadrigaCX ceased operations in late January 2019. The company then filed for bankruptcy in April 2019, with CA$215 million ($172 million) in liabilities and about CA$28 million ($22 million) in assets, reported by The Ottawa Citizen. An investigation of Quadriga found it was little more than a Bitcoin Ponzi scheme. The Cottens home was filled with piles and piles of loose cash, which Gerry claimed was a consequence of supposedly discriminatory banks who didnt yet understand crypto and refused to work with them. The Smashing Pumpkins forthcoming The World is a Vampire festival tour has gained a Brisbane leg and additional events in both Sydney and Melbourne. Speaking on CTV's Your Morning Tuesday, Robertson said the aftermath of her husband Gerald Cotten's sudden death from complications of Crohn's disease has haunted her, after it quickly became. 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. 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. QuadrigaCX announced its insolvency at the beginning of 2019 following the sudden death of its CEO, Gerald Cotten. I could bring them some answers.. It threw us and Quadriga into absolute chaos, he affected so many lives and he hurt so many people., Robertson said dealing with the conspiracy theories about her husband faking his death have been difficult., I saw him die, I brought his body back to Halifax with me from India and there have been numerous people who have seen his body, including his mother and his father, she continued. Now she is telling her side of the story. All the while, she says, she was trying to wrap her mind around the idea that her husband had been a scammer, and the life theyd led together was over. The argument that thats what happened with Quadriga didnt pass the smell test for many in the industry who are adept at scouring the anonymous ledgers that underpin the decentralized networks for evidence of where digital coins may be stored. Listen and subscribe to get a daily fix on the latest political news and issues. She still thinks about her husband when she hears a song they both liked, or looks at old photos. I think the most misunderstood part of everything that happened was that I had something to do with Gerrys disappearance or Gerrys death, or that I hadnt cared about the investors, which is absolutely not true, Robertson said. The couple were on their honeymoon in India, where Jennifer had dreams of opening an orphanage. Cottens widow set off the firestorm by seeking protection from creditors for the Vancouver-based company, saying that her late husband was very conscious about security and she didnt know the password or recovery key of his encrypted laptop nor could she find anything written down despite repeated searches. Robertson said she never suspected anything in all those years with Cotten. All theories are unproven and Cotten is believed to have died in December 2018. Analysis firms such as Elementus say that by examining the blockchain patterns, they can guess which particular wallets holding coins belong to. Cotten's entire C$9.6 million ($7.6 million) estate was left to his wife, Jennifer Robertson and in January 2019, Quadriga officially confirmed Cotten's passing. Jennifer Robertson and Gerald Cotten traveled around the world before Quadriga unraveled. Thousands of customers paid his company to mine cryptocurrency for them. The representatives of QuadrigaCX applied for creditor protection soon after Cottens death, and the court appointed the company Ernst&Young to try and find at least some of the missing money. She'll get . The broad outlines of his story were blandly conventional, at least if you. Regulators were able to recover about $27m of customer funds, and Robertson turned over almost all of her possessions, including $12m in assets and the couples extravagant possessions, but nearly $200m remains missing or inaccessible. Ernst & Young found Cotten had transferred millions of dollars in crypto out of customer accounts and into other bitcoin exchanges, using different names. CRYPTOCURRENCIES are a form of payment that can be exchanged for goods and services. Jennifer Robertson and in January 2019, Quadriga . I wanted other people to know that sometimes some terrible things happen, she said. It also found that Quadriga had "inadvertently" transferred Bitcoins valued at half-a-million dollars into more cold wallets, which they were unable to access, reported the BBC. That person, what he did to everybody else, what he did to me, I dont understand it.. 2023 BDG Media, Inc. All rights reserved. The man lives across the street from a five-bedroom home that was . Quadriga investors have yet to get their money back. It was determined that Cotten was the only person who could access QuadrigaCX funds, the cold wallet, with his widow not even able to unlock his personal computer, leaving people without their money, including entire life savings for some. Robertson and Cotten met on a Tinder date in 2014, when they were both around 26 years old. Ernst & Young was able to track down several cold wallets which were thought to be holding over C$230 million ($184 million) worth of cryptocurrency in early March 2019, but all of them were empty. Unfortunately, the honeymoon was short-lived, and Cotten was declared dead within 24 hours of their arrival in India. The widow of QuadrigaCX founder Gerald Cotten says she is heartbroken over calls for her husband's body to be exhumed. Blockchain is a decentralised technology spread across computers that manages and records transactions. The CEO left his wife his Jeanneau 51 sailboat; an airplane, a Lexus and a Mini Cooper (among other unnamed motor vehicles); and properties at 1021 Lamont Lane, Kelowna, British Columbia, 71 Kinross Court in Nova Scotia, 511 and 512 Ringling Court in Nova Scotia and 34 Little Island and Seaview Drive in Nova Scotia to his widow. Were some of the best moments of my life absolutely fake?. The virtually unregulated world of digital currencies has been a breeding ground for hacks and thefts since the Bitcoin was invented more than a decade ago. He had mentioned that if anything were to happen to him, there would be this dead man switch which would provide me with all of his financial information or his parents might have got it, he said and then it never came, she said. I never for a second thought that Gerry wasnt doing what he told me, she said. Comments on this story are moderated according to our Submission Guidelines. Richard Niedermayer, a lawyer with Stewart McKelvey in Halifax who represented Robertson, declined to comment Wednesday. They found he checked into a Jaipur hospital just nine days into his honeymoon due to an acute stomach ache. There was also the very real material impact of what happened. In his will, Cotten names Robertson executrix of his estate, as well as endowing her as its primary beneficiary. Jennifer Robertson was the wife of Gerald Cotten, aka "The Crypto King," whose sudden death is the focus of Netflix's latest true-crime documentary "Trust No One: The Hunt for the Crypto King." She wrapped up the phone call. He is now a data journalist in Halifax, and you can reach him at (902) 456-9180, by email at jack.julian@cbc.ca or follow him on Twitter @jackjulian. A judge is scheduled to deal with a motion to appoint lawyers wholl represent Quadriga account holders at a hearing on Feb. 14 in Halifax Supreme Court, according to a court filing Wednesday. The OSC concluded Cotten was effectively running a Ponzi scheme. Everyone knows the story about the now-defunct QuadrigaCX . The charity tells donors they can build a 12-child home like this one from . S&P Index data is the property of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. and its licensors. After Cotten's death, Robertson said she "made every effort to assist in the recovery of the QuadrigaCX assets for the benefit of affected users," she said Monday in an e-mailed statement provided by her lawyer. In October 2018, Jennifer Robertson was living the life of her dreams. (Courtesy of Jennifer Robertson) The first thing. Simultaneously, an investigation was launched by The Ontario Securities Commission (OSC). Most people do not have to repeatedly assure the world that theyre not hiding out in the tropics with their deceased spouse, but as Ms Robertson details in her new book, Bitcoin Widow: Love, Betrayal and the Missing Millions, her last few years have been unlike anything most people experience. "Finding the characters or the people whose lives were really directly impacted by it was very hard to do," McDonald said. Sometimes when people pass away, they leave their family not only with grief, but also with multiple financial issues. Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO). Seniors Drew Oberholtzer and Grant Burkholder led Newark's charge down the stretch in a 57-48 victory against Olentangy Liberty in the district final. At the time, he was the CEO of QuadrigaCX, a company that performed cryptocurrency exchanges. As legal proceedings under these protections ensued and suspicions mounted, Michael Wood graduated the case to bankruptcy proceedings.Formerly acting as court monitor for the case, Ernst . 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[4] I fell into a hole that was dug by someone and I was kind left there to get myself out of it. Jennifer Robertson and Gerald Cotten married in 2018. Quadriga tested these principles to the fullest. But all that would be revealed later. The next day, the Crohn's disease sufferer was reportedly declared dead from septic shock. China plans to boost its military spending by 7.2% this year, the government said, accelerating its military buildup as tensions rise with the U.S. and its allies over Taiwan. "It's no Tiger King, it's Canada and people like their privacy.". Jennifer Robertson has tried to move on with her life and sink back into anonymity. The settlement she reached with Ernst and Young in October of 2019 required her to turn over cash and investments as well as real estate and vehicles, and allowed her to keep $90,000 in cash, her personal retirement savings plan (worth $20,000), her personal car (a Jeep), her jewelry (including her wedding ring, but not her engagement ring), and her clothing and some furniture. Before Gerry died, he had altered his will and left many of his assets to his wife, but he hadnt written down the passwords or set up an emergency succession plan for the so-called cold wallet storage devices where Quadriga said it stored its customers money. Gerald Cotten, 30, was the CEO of QuadricaCX, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in Canada which defaulted last year following his death while abroad with his wife Jennifer Robertson. As she tells it, Robertson was left with the mystery of her husbands real identity and personality. Newsweek Newsletter sign-up > They married four years later in October 2018, living a. Kids Family And Net Worth. "The more information you have, the more you can do with the story. Jennifer eventually learned that Cotten hadnt been paying taxes at all. Every single memory we had together, she said, laughs we had. So did the absence of internal oversight over Cotten.". After his death, online trolls harassed Robertson so aggressively that she had to change her phone number and email address, shut down her social media accounts, and temporarily move into a safe house. In the wake of his death, Robertson, along with the rest of the world, discovered that Cotten had been scamming people who used his exchange, QuadrigaCX (commonly known as Quadriga). Robertson had already been briefly married. For further details of our complaints policy and to make a complaint please click this link: thesun.co.uk/editorial-complaints/, Gerald "Gerry" Cotten ran the Quadriga cryptocurrency exchange. This set off a wave of speculation about what Cotten had been planning, some founded, some baseless. Another dozen properties in Halifax valued at roughly $6 million CAD are reportedly under the management of Robertsons real estate company, Robertson Nova Property Management Inc., according to the Chronicle Herald. She hopes her story, in addition to being yet another tale of millennial capitalism gone wrong, is one of hope. All rights reserved. Robertson returned to Canada with the body. Most of the homes are in metro Halifax. Not only did the government not know how to police and regulation this emerging asset class, certainly the average individual didnt comprehend the true implications of owning those type of investments and the risks, she said. As investors and investigators probed what happened, they would discover the truth was wilder than what they had imagined, uncovering perhaps the biggest crypto scandal in history. The FBI and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police are still ostensibly investigating the lost crypto, though there hasnt been a break in the case in years. "I thought, this is why I have this development money, this is what I'm supposed to be doing," McDonald told Yahoo Canada. Previous reports found that co-founder Michael Patryn is actually convicted felon Omar Dhanani, who served time in the U.S. for his role in the Shadow Crew identify theft and credit card fraud ring. Gerald Cotten, a Nova Scotia resident originally from Ontario, was 30 years old when he died suddenly while travelling in India on Dec. 9 -- leaving his virtual company, QuadrigaCX, without access . I decided to write this book because I wanted to be able to have a platform where I could say exactly what I wanted to say, and the media wouldnt be able to twist it, Robertson said of Bitcoin widow: Love, Betrayal & The Missing Millions. I also had a lot of grief and things I had to work through so I had to make sure that I was ready to write the book and have it be published.. Its not like I went abroad and ran away from this mess. I so badly wanted Gerry to obviously be alive, one because he is my husband and two because he could sort this all out or provide answers, so when the world is screaming hes still alive, and you know that hes not, it can be difficult to deal with that when youre grieving., Speaking about when the Ontario Securities Commission determined that Cotten was basically running a Ponzi scheme and Robertson was forced to hand over the majority of the assets left to her in her husbands will, which was signed two weeks before his death, Robertson said she lost her home but just had to keep pushing forward.. Robertson has always maintained she never had access to Cotten's laptop, passwords or Quadriga accounts. This year, she gave birth to a baby daughter, and is pursuing a career in elementary education. It turned out that Gerald Cotten, the chief executive officer of the cryptocurrency exchange QuadrigaCX left quite a mess after his death, which his wife Jennifer Robertson now has to deal with. Everyone Practices Cancel Culture | Opinion, Deplatforming Free Speech is Dangerous | Opinion. Bitcoin tokens are shown in Sandy, Utah on April 3, 2013. Safe & Secure Dating! (AP/Rick Bowmer). Explore new perspectives in managing and sustaining digital transformation. As heard in Netflix's Trust No One, in the months leading up to Cotten's death, users had been complaining about how they could not access their money and were waiting weeks to receive their funds. So it's a really interesting world, but be careful.". We had so many memories together. She eventually went back to school and fell in love with teaching, she said, and is looking forward to a new chapter in her life, telling Your Morning that she is now in the third trimester of pregnancy. After spending a few years out of the spotlight, shes emerged to tell her story in full in her memoir Bitcoin Widow: Love, Betrayal and the Missing Millions, coauthored with Stephen Kimber. Three years later, audiences are wondering what actually happened to QuadrigaCX and if it is still operating today. Netflix Special on Bitcoin Fraudster Gerald Cotten, His Wife, and QuadrigaCX. Every scammer needs enablers, and Gerald Cotten had plenty. Fala Chen Bio : Husband, Married, Net Worth & Movies. I grew up in a middle class, good family. The filmmaker also lost a little bit of money when she was "messing around" with cryptocurrency, and admits that she fell into many of traps that she was warned about. When it came to property, he and his then-girlfriend Jennifer Robertson lived in a three-bedroom in the posh Fall River area, north of Halifax. She splits her time between working as a waitress and studying for her teaching qualification.