The missing $195m: Crypto accounts emptied months before CEO's mysterious death
3/6/19
-Experts finally cracked the laptop of the crypto CEO who died with sole access to $137 million ($195 million). But the money was already gone.
-Gerald Cotten, founder of QuadrigaCX, was thought to have had sole access to the funds and coins exchanged on the cryptocurrency exchange. After his mysterious death in December, his colleagues said about $US137 million in cryptocurrency, belonging to about 115,000 customers, was held offline in ‘cold storage’ and inaccessible.
-The case has sparked numerous theories, including that he faked his own death and ran off with the cash. However, court-appointed auditor Ernst & Young was able to crack Cotten’s laptop. What they found, according to an EY report dated March 1, the accounts had been emptied in April 2018, eight months before his death.
-“In April 2018, the remaining bitcoin in the Identified Bitcoin Cold Wallets was transferred out bringing the balances down to nil,” the report said.
https://www.msn.com/en-au/money/personalfinance/the-missing-dollar195m-crypto-accounts-emptied-months-before-ceos-mysterious-death/ar-BBUsNSp
Crypto Exchange Quadriga Gets Court Approval to Shift to Bankruptcy
4/8/19
-Cryptocurrency exchange owner Quadriga Fintech Solutions Corp. is moving into bankruptcy proceedings.
-The embattled Vancouver-based firm was given the go-ahead in a Nova Scotia Supreme Court Monday to transition from court-approved creditor protection to a bankruptcy process, a move that aims to help cut costs and facilitate recovery of assets from creditors.
-Quadriga owes about 115,000 customers some C$260 million ($195 million) after its founder Gerald Cotten died in December without telling anyone how to access the cryptocurrencies held for clients. Quadriga’s platform shut down on Jan. 28 and by Feb. 5 gained court protection under Canada’s Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act, with Ernst & Young acting as a monitor for the process.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-08/quadriga-gets-court-approval-to-shift-to-bankruptcy-proceedings