Investors want authorities to exhume the body of the founder of Canada‘s largest and now bankrupt bitcoin exchange to confirm its death and identity due to ‘questionable circumstances’ following his sudden death in India last year.
Gerald Cotten, the 30-year-old founder of the bankrupt cryptocurrency firm QaudrigaCX, died from complications of Crohn’s syndrome while honeymooning in India with his wife on December 9, 2018.
An auditor has since reviewed the troubled firm, and reported concerns over management of the exchange.
These include that Cotten traded bitcoins under aliases, and that substantial funds were transferred to him directly, reports the BBC.
On Friday, lawyers for investors wrote to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police seeking the exhumaton and post-mortem autopsy be performed on Cotten’s body ‘to confirm both its identity and the cause of death.’
Cotten’s widow, Jennifer Robertson, in a statement through her lawyer, said she is heartbroken to learn of this request’, regarding the exhumation of his remains.
She did not immediately respond when DailyMail.com reached out.
Cotten had been the only person with keywords to $137 million invested in bitcoins at the time of his passing.
His firm, at the time of his death, had about 115,000 clients.
Meanwhile, the auditor, Ernst & Young, has only been able to recover about $25 million.
Rumors on the internet have spread that Cotten may in fact still be alive, living off embezzled funds.
His death came four days after he completed his will, which details that his estate includes $9 million in real estate, a Lexus, Cessna plane and yacht, know as the Gulliver.
His name also had been misspelled on his Indian death certificate by the the Rajasthan hospital, in a country where forged documents are easy to obtain, according to Vanity Fair.
The post Investors Want Body of Bitcoin Trader, 30, Exhumed Amid Fears He May Still Be Alive and Living Off Embezzled Fortune After he ‘Died’ on India Honeymoon and Took Investors’ $137M to the Grave. appeared first on LewRockwell.
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