Browse Birmingham local obituaries on Legacy.com. [9][11], On October 8, 2019, Robertson returned $12 million CAD to Quadriga, from her husband's estate. No one had seen the Cottens in about three weeks; some said they were on vacation, but no one seemed to know where. Start your Independent Premium subscription today. 8 non-fiction in Canada, No. at the time Canadas largest cryptocurrency exchange, Gerald Cotten, 30, died in questionable circumstances, Canadian company founder took crucial password to the grave. Gerald Cotten died mysteriously with a large sum of money in his bank account, leaving everything to his wife. His condition was so severe that there were few options for treatment. Cotten had allegedly told his wife he would create a mechanism that would allow her to access all of his crypto-related passwords should he die but he never did. Cotten was young, energetic, passionate about cryptocurrency so when he passed away in December 2018 during his honeymoon in India, due to complications from Crohns disease, everyone was taken by surprise. You get rid of a lot of the regulations, he said on a podcast in 2014. The guy had more money than he knew what to do with, said Eric Schletz, who got to know Mr. Cotten at a small flying club in Nova Scotia. It reads: Im currently in Toronto about to fly to India to open an orphanage. One day, he was on his honeymoon, enjoying the opulence of Jaipur. Mr. Cottens rapid demise is consistent with what might happen to someone with Crohns disease who was suffering from septic shock, said Brian Feagan, a London, Ont.-based doctor who specializes in the illness. He added that the hospital called the death a natural one, and we dont have any suspicion., Anand Srivastava, the police commissioner in Jaipur, says he can see nothing suspicious in the death of Mr. Cotten.Nathan VanderKlippe/The Globe and Mail. It remains to be seen how much money individual users will recoup. They arranged for a luxury SUV to pick them up at the airport, where their flight was scheduled to touch down at 5:15 p.m. on Dec. 8, 2018. On the morning of Dec. 10, Anoop Singhs phone rang, with a request from Fortis Escorts Hospital for a no objection certificate, a police declaration that clears a death of suspicion of foul play. It was made possible because he worked so hard. Gerry passed away from cardiac arrest, she wrote in the e-mail, obtained by The Globe. And then you stop flying altogether.. There were other problems around that time. Use the links under See more to quickly search for other people with the same last name in the same cemetery, city, county, etc. Eventually, they would have come upon a small industrial region where a cluster of tin-roofed factories hoist giant granite boulders and slice them into thin sheets. She also wrote her own book, Bitcoin Widow: Love, Betrayal and the Missing Millions, with Stephen Kimber, about her relationship with Cotten and the collapse of Quadriga. Arrangements are by Cotten Funeral Home & Crematory. They also spent time in Varanasi, the ancient city on the banks of the Ganges that is one of Hinduisms holiest sites. [3][11][12][13] Bloomberg News described this as a voluntary settlement. In their letter to the RCMP the law firm underlined the need for certainty around the question of whether Mr Cotten is in fact deceased. Are you sure that you want to delete this flower? For Quadriga users still hoping some of their funds will be recovered, the news came as another blow. Globe and Mail reporters travelled to Mr. Cottens childhood home in Ontario, to the places he lived and worked and occasionally flaunted his wealth in Nova Scotia and to the Indian city where he breathed his last breath in a bid to better understand how he died, but also to get a glimpse at how a man who carried the keys to vast sums of other peoples money lived. Venkatapuram, india, debert., n.s., and belleville, ont. Anoop Singh is the station house officer for Jawahar Circle, which issued a certificate for Mr. Cotten clearing his death of suspicion of foul play.Nathan VanderKlippe/The Globe and Mail. Arriving here they were, for a moment, a modern-day king and queen, the latest adventure for a couple whose lives were studded with signs of affluence. Soon after his death, however, reports surfaced that nearly 80,000 users of QuadrigaCX at the time Canadas largest cryptocurrency exchange were unable to access funds totalling more $190m. If you have questions, please contact [emailprotected]. The only catch: only Gerry knew the passwords to the companys crypto-vaults. The laptop computer from which Gerry carried out the companies business is encrypted and I do not know the password or recovery key. Other hospitals in Jaipur are grim places, with bathrooms that have no soap and patients milling about in hallways. Dr. Sharma listed the cause as sudden cardiac arrest stemming from a perforation. As manager of this memorial you can add or update the memorial using the Edit button below. Indian authorities allowed his body to be embalmed and flown back to Canada for a closed-casket funeral. Language links are at the top of the page across from the title. For users who have lost money, the revelations are all the more painful given the price of bitcoin has rallied in recent months. Gerald Cotten was a Canadian financier, whose sudden death, at 30-years-old, stirred controversy. Mr. Cotten rarely made the hour-long drive to Debert and kept to himself when he did, making few friends. Heritage Chapel Funeral Home in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, has provided funeral and cremation services to residents in Tuscaloosa, Northport and West Alabama since 1925. Everybody looked at it and admired it, she said. Sippin Singapore Slings on my 28th! reads the caption next to a poolside shot posted from the Hilton Hotels & Resorts in Dubai. Gerald Wayne Smith, 76, of Cottondale, passed away on Friday, April 21, 2023, at DCH Regional Medical Center. A Mass of Christian Burial will be held at He is survived by his daughters, Maria Paz (Ramon) and Marcela Lopez (Juan); sister, Donna Darby; nieces and nephews, Wendi Montgomery (Tim), Karen Hallum, Steve Bryant Darby, Rita Broughton (Donny) Tammie Colburn (Paul), and Buck Smith (Renee); and grandchildren, Juan Josue Gomez, Isai Caleb Gomez, Sherlyn Vasquez, and Diego Vasquez. Staff at SMS Medical College, where the Oberoi workers went next, asked fewer questions. WebAbout. cemeteries found in Livingston, Livingston Parish, Louisiana, USA will be saved to your photo volunteer list. I might give up my dream and take a job I dont want because of the financial damage that has been done," he said. A computer issue wiped $14 million of Ethereum off the exchange. [12], Robertson said she was not involved in how her husband managed Quadriga, and had initially assumed her inheritance came from "legitimately earned profits, salary and dividends. She left them at the Oberoi with instructions that they be shipped to the orphanage. If he perforated [his bowel] well, people can get really sick really fast.. There was just one problem: he is officially dead and buried, following a closed-casket funeral service in Halifax, Nova Scotia, on Dec 14 2018." Sign up today. And I'll carry that shame with me, probably, every single day for the rest of my life.". Thanks for your help! Little is known about Ms. Robertson, who appears to have used three different surnames since she began buying real estate in Nova Scotia with Mr. Cotten in 2016. Some time around noon the next day, with his condition little changed from the night before, hospital staff took Mr. Cotten for an ultrasound. It listed the assets she was keeping, which included her wedding band, her personal vehicle, her personal retirement savings fund, and $90,000 cash. What happened is morally revolting, says Ryan Kneer, a Calgary-based market-maker in cryptocurrency. He had an air of being successful, but he wasnt flashy, said the neighbours, all of whom declined to be named out of respect for the grieving family. GREAT NEWS! Newsweek has everything you need to know. It was one of the only games in town [for crypto enthusiasts], Sheona McDonald, who directed the film, told The New York Post. Club and Elks Lodge. Gerald Cotten, head of the Quadriga cryptocurrency exchange, and his wife Jennifer Robertson came here on their honeymoon before Mr. Cotten died.Nathan VanderKlippe/The Globe and Mail. He was an avid LSU Tigers and Atlanta Braves fan. All photos appear on this tab and here you can update the sort order of photos on memorials you manage. Theyre still waiting. Almost as soon as they arrived at the Oberoi Rajvilas, however, they left to seek medical care for Cotten. Online, however, the couple left signs of a jet-set lifestyle. He is preceded in death by his parents, Buck and Lois Smith; wife, Mae Smith; son, Jason Smith; and sister, Annice Smith. Today, she lives in Halifax in Nova Scotia, Canada with her two dogs. Usually bodies are brought to her by ambulance. Please enter your email address and we will send you an email with a reset password code. In a rare interview with CBC'S The National in January 2022, Robertson stated: "I would have never, ever stolen from other people. Upon returning home he married Mae Pate. They planned to spend four nights in the city, according to their booking with the Oberoi, which sent an Audi Q7 to the airport to pick them up, according to e-mails obtained by The Globe. SMS records examined by The Globe show the body was delivered and picked up by Oberoi representatives. He is a 1965 graduate of Holt High School. Year should not be greater than current year. But Mr. Cottens involvement here has been a mixed blessing. If you notice a problem with the translation, please send a message to [emailprotected] and include a link to the page and details about the problem. Robertson is also expecting a child, reported CBC. In December 2018, Cotten died during his honeymoon with his wife, Jennifer Robertson, in Jaipur, India. There is a clear lesson here that having a single person owning this information creates a huge vulnerability.. It is a medically credible conclusion. A person who answered the phone said it was inappropriate for a journalist to be asking questions about what happened. 6 best-seller in non-fiction in Canada for the week ending 26 January 2022[16] and No6 in Canadian non-fiction for the week ending 16 February 2022[17] in the Toronto Star, and No. Ernst & Young was able to recover $24m in cash and $9m in assets held by Robertson. Uncertainty about the missing funds has fueled speculation that Cotten may still be alive. In January, the company filed for protection under the Companies Creditors Arrangement Act (CCAA), leaving users and the court-appointed monitor struggling to untangle the operations of a company with no accounting records or internal controls. Mr Patryn pled guilty in 2005 to working in an identity fraud ring, and did business under a company called Midas Gold as an intermediary with Liberty Reserve, a Costa Rican digital currency firm busted as one of the largest money laundering operations in history. The charity tells donors they can build a 12-child home like this one from just US$21,350. You may not upload any more photos to this memorial, This photo was not uploaded because this memorial already has 20 photos, This photo was not uploaded because you have already uploaded 5 photos to this memorial, This photo was not uploaded because this memorial already has 30 photos, This photo was not uploaded because you have already uploaded 15 photos to this memorial. Your Scrapbook is currently empty. Cotten's sudden death in 2018 led to the Citing decomposition concerns, lawyers requested the exhumation be completed no later than spring 2020. Gerald was a master builder for over 45 years and was the owner of Cotten Custom Homes. He was the only one who knew where the company stored its cryptocurrency reserves and the passwords to access them, according to an affidavit filed by his widow, Jennifer Robertson. He has also yet to receive the stuffed bears that Ms. Robertson had brought for the grand opening. These user-investors found a number of the details surrounding Cottens death that they believed to be suspicious: people dont often die from Crohns disease, especially not at 30; and Robertson didnt post about Cottens death until a month after the fact, and claimed that she couldnt access the exchange that only Cotten had had the ability to transfer investors money, meaning that their Bitcoin was lost forever. Jaipur's privately owned Fortis Escorts Hospital. He works out of the second floor of a small police station, where a bundle of roses lies next to a wall hanging of a Hindu scene lit with flashing pink LEDs. Add to thisas Ernst & Young said a significant amount of fiat currency was transferred to both Mr. Cotten and his widow. Mr. Cotten's childhood home in Belleville, Ont. In her memoir, Ms Robertson denies shes part of an elaborate plot to fake her husbands death, adding that speculation has led to death threats from stalkers demanding she returns the missing millions. Gerald Cotten, Quadrigas 30-year-old CEO and founder, created artificial trading volume and inflated company revenue, according to a report released Wednesday by Ernst & Young, the monitor overseeing the exchanges unwinding. Cotten didnt have time to enjoy the resort, though: He was feeling sick upon his arrival and would be dead within 24 hours. In April, a Nova Scotia judge agreed to transition the CCAA proceeding to a bankruptcy case. Fifty-five minutes later, they arrived at the Oberoi, where guards salute visitors and lead them to an entrance where water burbles down a stone channel into a basin filled with rose petals, a fragrant homage to the nearby palace that was a royal residence for centuries of maharajas.