Auditors Say QuadrigaCX Crypto Wallets Drained 8 Months Before Chief Gerald Cotten Died With Passwords
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REUTERS/Dado Ruvic
New questions have been raised about the increasingly mysterious death of Gerald Cotten, founder and chief of the Canada-based QuadrigaCX cryptocurrency firm. Cotten was the only person who had the codes to access the accounts when he reportedly died of complications of Crohn’s disease on Dec. 9, during a philanthropy trip to India. Auditors from Ernst & Young were brought in to try to crack the codes to recover some $190 million in funds. They were able to break into Cotten’s master account, but soon discovered that all of the crypto wallets had been emptied eight months before Cotten’s alleged death. E&Y also says 14 client accounts were created outside the company’s “normal process” that were involved in the withdrawal of the funds and sent them to “addresses not associated with Quadriga.” The auditors are now examining all historical transactions for further clues.