Widow of QuadrigaCX Founder Denies Knowledge of Company’s $215M Scam

Jennifer Robertson, the widow of the founder of QuadrigaCX crypto exchange, Gerald Cotten, in an interview, denied having any knowledge of the scam her husband pulled off through his company before he passed away.

Robertson also expressed sorrow at the pain the affected victims of the fraud must be going through. She said,

“I want the people that Gerry hurt to know that I’m hurt, too. I know they were very hurt, and I know I can’t make it better… I wish I could. I used to be so proud of him. Then to find out what happened, and then just be so ashamed – it’s heartbreaking.”

QuadrigaCX crypto exchange which was believed to be Canada’s largest cryptocurrency exchange was a firm under Quadriga Fintech Solutions. The latter company was owned and founded by Gerald Cotton and Michael Patryn in 2013.

Mr. Cotten allegedly died in December 2018, at the age of 30 when the couple had traveled to India to celebrate their honeymoon.

Due to a prior arrangement to attend the opening of an orphanage Mr. Cotten had donated some funds to, the couple had to travel to India, even though the husband was not keen on the location due to his Crohn’s illness.

In the course of the vacation, Gerald Cotten died and his company went bankrupt with debt worth millions. According to the company officials, only Mr. Cotten knew the keys to the company’s crypto vault and so funds could not be released to customers.

The saga led to different speculations. One of the rumors was that Cotten faked his death and his dead body should be exhumed for confirmation.

To get to the root of the location of the missing funds, security authorities started investigating the matter.

After several probings, the Ontario Securities Commission later concluded Mr. Cotten essentially ran a Ponzi scheme where he used fake accounts to “buy” his customers’ Bitcoin using fake cash and then used the funds to make personal investments.

His widow, still insistent on the fact that she wasn’t aware of her late husband’s rip-off or the location of the missing funds, wrote a memoir with journalist Stephen Kimber titled “Bitcoin Widow: Love, Betrayal and the Missing Millions.”