Lawyers for customers of an insolvent cryptocurrency exchange have asked police to exhume the body of the company’s founder, amid efforts to recover about $190m in Bitcoin which were locked in an online black hole after his death.
Miller Thomson LLP sent a letter to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police on Friday, requesting authorities “conduct an exhumation and postmortem autopsy” on the body of Gerald Cotten, founder of QuadrigaCX, citing what the firm called the “questionable circumstances” around his death earlier this year.
Gerald Cotten, 30, died abruptly in December 2018 of complications relating to Crohn’s disease while on honeymoon in Jaipur, India, with his wife, Jennifer Robertson
The accounting firm Ernst & Young, tasked with auditing the company as it undergoes bankruptcy proceedings, discovered numerous money-losing trades executed by Cotten, using customers’ funds. They also found a substantial amount of money was used to fund a lavish lifestyle for the couple, including the use of private jets and luxury vehicles. Ernst & Young was able to recover $24m in cash and $9m in assets held by Robertson.
Both Canada’s tax authorities and the FBI are also investigating the company.
Via The Guardian
