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Comment by seibelj | Hacker News Reader

Edit - This is a conspiracy theory but it doesn’t mean it’s totally crazy - there is a good chance this “dead” CEO is still alive.

Very shortly before his death he got his affairs in order and flew to India. Then it’s reported he died along with a death certificate from India. Now they can’t find $200mil in crypto and are not reporting the cold storage addresses.

Would not surprise me if there has been massive fraud here, whether the CEO is alive or not. Everything is too convenient.

If you want to read posts from many sad and pissed off people, their subreddit is full of them https://www.reddit.com/r/QuadrigaCX

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I am from India and trust me, finding a public toilet is more difficult than faking a death certificate

wait. so is that easy or hard?

Can you easily buy a new identity and passport though?

I guess with $200 million untraceable money you can afford to buy an identity of a dead Indian.

I would think since every transaction is recorded on the blockchain, and he is the only one with the keys, any activity involving those BTC would raise a red flag.

But suppose that some time from now someone moves all that BTC into a different cryptocurrency, potentially via automated services like shapeshift.

What happens? How do people punish him?

Death certificate is issued by local authorities, so easier to bribe. But valid Passport will be hard to get.

That could have been obtained before the "death", anywhere in the world. (and forged entry stamps could also be obtained)

Are you trying to be dramatic just for the sake of it? Because finding a public toilet (aka sulabh shauchalaya) is not difficult AT ALL.

Source: I've lived in 7 cities in India all my life.

Yeah and imagine that faking a death certificate is even easier than that. That would make it a pretty effective metaphor for how easy it is.

That's the joke: it's super easy to fake a death certificate in India.

Thanks for the clarification. English not being my first language, I find it difficult to catch jokes if they're worded that way.

As a native English speaker it still is ambiguous to me

In a country of over a billion people, I imagine that finding a public toilet is not that easy.

You imagine and I've experienced it. Wonder who has a better idea...

i don’t like talking about this in public due to the safety risk, but it’s also very easy in the united stages. you just need paper pen, white out and a fax machine. most death certificates are easily available online. perhaps i restored some of your faith in humanity. Deading someone isn’t more common

Most jurisdictions (US and otherwise) have moved to Electronic Death Registration Systems. There was a fun Defcon talk about "killing" people with them a few years ago - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FdHq3WfJgs

And apparently a big problem if someone fat fingers your SSN and kills you by accident. Most systems aren’t design to unkill you to correct the mistake.

It’s easy I agree but not that easy. When my grand mother passed away at home in India we took her to the hospital and they said she was brought dead and they cannot issue a death certificate. Then we had to find some doctor in the neighborhood who was willing to issue one. Now he only agreed to issue after making sure that he she was actually dead. I suspect getting a fake death certificate would not not be this easy.

One comment in that thread stands out: "Who writes a will two weeks before their death but doesn't create a backup plan for the wallets that hold other people's funds?"

http://dayssinceacryptocurrencyexchangehaslostmorethan100mil...

Wait... What the???

Quote "BitGrail lost $170 million worth of Nano XRB tokens because... the checks for whether you had a sufficient balance to withdraw were only implemented as client-side JavaScript "

"top men"

I remember a number of early e-commerce sites that put item prices in HTML forms. So craft your own POST, and name your own price.

Recently seen the price listed/editable in the URL on a checkout form page.

Yes, seen this once before, where the shipping price was calculated client side, then sent to the server with no validation. You could craft a request with a negative value and get the price down to a cent for the entire cart!

At least in e-commerce, you can always send an email to the customer explaining the mistake, and cancel the order...

hilarious!

Kudos. It's harder to lose $100m these days as when Bitcoin was at peak price.

Also, to feed the conspiracy theory that this is a fraud:

They are claiming he died from Chron’s disease which is highly unlikely.

It seems like a plausible deniability move. He probably has Chron’s disease and that can be easily proven through his medical history.

Also is easier to tie that, to a story in which he couldn’t get the right treatment for his Chron’s disease complications abroad.

Dying from complications related to Crohn’s is not out of the question, especially in places that don’t always have the best health care.

I'm sure there's good health care there for people who can afford it

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_tourism_in_India "India is cost-effectiveness, and treatment from accredited facilities at par with developed countries at much lower cost."

But will a Canadian that’s unfamiliar with the country be able to find it?

(Serious question, I have no idea what the answer is).

It's really easy to find hospitals in India, just google 'hospitals around me' or use the phone number '102' to call an ambulance from any place. Usually, doctors are very comfortable talking in English. I'm from India and most of my conversations with doctors happen in English.

Extremely easy.

I've been unwell in India, and had unwell children there. India probably sucks if you have no money, but if you have a white face or other sign of affluence, then getting to a physician or hospital is no problem at all, and the care is good.

India probably sucks if you have no money

This is true in most of the world, not just India :P

It's also more likely to die from complications of, say, surgery for Crohn's. So you might make a will beforehand (he made a will 2 weeks prior to dying). For the same reason, you might look into key escrow or similar (he clearly did not).

Good to add that they were having some liquidity problems before his death.

The trip to India was supposed to open an orphanage. This orphanage was built by an organization that accepts large donations for specific buildings such as orphanages or water wells. For an orphanage, it costs $ 50,000.

It did not seem to me, when visiting this organization's website, that they have full transparency about these negotiations and these expenses.

And so far they have not released addresses for cold wallets. Okay, he had the private key. But public keys would have to be known by the system.

He could perhaps have been having trouble with his Chrones disease, so he got his affairs in order and went to India for potentially risky and expensive treatment, which didn't go well.

And the motivation for getting the affairs in order didn’t motivate including private key management in the affairs. There is zero chance this is not a scam exit.

Well strictly speaking it is a conspiracy theory but not an unreasonable one.

Yes the exchange participating in not disclosing cold storage addresses would make it a conspiracy

Well, it is a conspiracy theory, but not all conspiracy theories are wrong...

Yes, since conspiracies have been unveiled several times before, the possibility is always there. Now, one needs some clues to feed the conspiracy. If there is an investigation we may know more.

Not sure there's even a conspiracy required, just the CEO being a fraudster.

Indian here. Its very easy to get a death certificate. Local newspapers do funny stings where they have got birth certificates and death certificates made of international personalities. Most funny was those of Zarqawi and Bin Laden.

Not true. Things have improved vastly in the health administration sector, especially when it comes to records. Corruption is indeed rampant but I think most Indians themselves have a very Bollywood-y idea about how things happen outside of their circle. So for a foreign official, outright faking it would be tough, until its somewhere deep in the rural parts (with little connection to the outside world). I think its more plausible that he committed suicide and the records are being altered, not faked.

Source: I have family working in this sector. Shit is difficult, especially if you are a foreign personal.

I'm sure they have improved greatly, which is wonderful, but it's still India, as you admit yourself:

> Corruption is indeed rampant

Are you seriously claiming you couldn't get a fake record in India for USD$1m? or even USD$100k? That is a lot of money for a doctor in India. I have a trouble believing it would be all that hard.

It was probably all organised before he even got on the plane.

A viable one at that. Many NGOs in India are actually sketchy business operations.

I am no expert but Indian laws are very strict when it comes to foreign money transactions. The law behind is called the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act, 2010. Everyone taking in foreign contributions need to register and file the amount of dollars flowing in.

I tried searching for the NGO on the FCRA website: https://fcraonline.nic.in/fc8_statewise.aspx

in state of Andhra Pradesh and got nothing.

> Very shortly before his death he got his affairs in order and flew to India.

This is a huge red flag. It's really easy to get fake IDs, passports, marriage certificates, death certificates, driver's licenses[1] etc in India, if you grease the right hands. and it's not even that much in USD. We are talking a couple of 100 bucks ( USD ) for a new passport with a new name and far less for other things.

[1] Source: Me. I) had to bribe a DMV officer about 200 Rs ( 4 USD back then in 1999) to get my Driver's License , so I can drive in US. I had to do this cos I was leaving in 3 days and I'd landed a job the previous week ( Had my H1-B ready to go).

I didn't even go to the DMV. He delivered the "International Drivers Permit" drivers license right to my door in 2 days.

Add to this:

"Mr. Cotten was diligent in other areas of his life. He signed a will on Nov. 27, less than two weeks before he died."

If that his first will, either he knew he was so ill this was a chance or another red flag.

people have done crazier things for less money

Fake your death, get some plastic surgery done, enjoy life with those $200 million dollars

Reminds me of drug trafficker "Lord of the Skies" Amado Carrillo Fuentes, who underwent plastic surgery, but died after the 8 hour procedure. The doctors were later found in concrete filled oil drums along a highway, with signs of torture to boot.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amado_Carrillo_Fuentes

http://edition.cnn.com/WORLD/9711/06/mexico.doctor/index.htm...

Another one:

https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/world/343092/mexican-gang-bos...

Cold storage addresses.. you mean the morgue?

I know this is meant as humor, but if they reported the public cold storage addresses then analysis could be done on movements and timelines.

I’m quite confident the lawyers will get to the bottom of this.

You realize that all bitcoin transactions can be tracked. People have sent BTC from their wallets to Quadriga, it should be trivial to find the cold wallet address. Should be easy for anyone who understands blockchain forensics.

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