The Globe and Mail flew reporters out to India to chat to the doctors and hospital and it seems he did die - https://outline.com/MS67gd
In further goings on it seems:
>The co-founder of troubled cryptocurrency exchange QuadrigaCX is a convicted felon who served time in the United States for his role in an online identity-theft ring
>That Mr. Cotten did indeed die is a certainty among police and medical professionals in India, and The Globe reviewed hotel, hospital and embalming records that give no suggestion of anything abnormal. Each record contains images of Mr. Cotten’s passport. Jayant Sharma, the doctor who treated him and produced a medical report about his death, confirmed that the man he saw matched photos of Mr. Cotten.
It seems like they saw apparently valid records and a doctor confirmed that he witnessed Cotten die. That doesn't seem especially compelling - what else would the doctor say? "No, I lied and forged his death certificates in exchange for money. Please end my medical career and send me to prison."
What is compelling is that the 5-star hotel where Cotton and his wife were staying, the hospital where he was treated, 2 members of the police department that reviewed the case, and the mortuary where he was embalmed, all confirm Cotton's death.
That would be a pretty elaborate staged death -- not impossible, but still the evidence provided in the article clearly points to Cotton having died suddenly and unexpectedly in India.
I'm not sure why you think the only option here is that the doctor was in on it. He could have treated a man with fake papers identifying him as Mr. Cotten. By asking the doctor to compare with known-valid photos you can eliminate the possibility that the doctor was unintentionally mistaken about the identity of the man he treated.
> He could have treated a man with fake papers identifying him as Mr. Cotten
So what you're saying is that this "Mr. Cotten" (almost certainly not Indian given the surname), magically appears on death's doorstep at the hospital and promptly dies the next day.
It's so far outside the realm of possiblity, but perhaps Cotton and his wife went to a local cafe frequented by tourists; found a similarly baby faced looking Northern European male with light colored hair and blue eyes; offered him a large sum of cash to "drink this potion that will make you temporarily ill, but only for 24 hours, trust us". Together they walk to the local fake ID shop and do the necessary; then "Cotton" and his "wife" check in at the 5-star hotel and proceed with the plan (drink potion, get sick, go to hospital, but oh noes, "Cotton" dies!).
The real Cotton then visits a local plastic surgeon to get that Brad Pitt look he's always wanted, and slips off to a remote tropical island to lay low until his wife can extricate herself from all the unwanted attention she's getting back home -- when the dust settles she rejoins him in their happily ever after, lifestyles of the rich but not famous, world travels.
You misunderstand me. I agree Cotton is almost certainly dead.
I was responding to the statement that questioning the doctor was essentially useless when looking into the possiblity that Cotton faked his death, as either he did indeed die or the doctor was part of the scheme. I was pointing out that there is value in talking to the doctor, as there are possiblities that don't require the doctor to be complicit.
If you've decided investigating the matter is worth your time, you may as well do it properly is all. Doesn't mean I think it's what likely happened.
> The co-founder of troubled cryptocurrency exchange QuadrigaCX is a convicted felon
All kinds of folks living at the top of the crypto pyramid have a rich checkered past. Look at esteemed former US citizen Roger Ver--convicted felon for mailing explosives. Then you've got Charlie Shrem, a convicted felon who was helping launder money. You've got Mark Karpeles, who was convicted in Japan for all kinds of shit. Lets not forget bitcoin developer Luke Jr -- who is a rather.... interesting.... fellow.
Name "spokesperson" for bitcoin and they'll have a rather sketchy history. I cannot name a single person at the top of the bitcoin food chain that is a "normal person".
> Name "spokesperson" for bitcoin and they'll have a rather sketchy history. I cannot name a single person at the top of the bitcoin food chain that is a "normal person".
I'll bite. What's the dirt on Andreas Antonopoulos?
As much as we all like him, I don't think he is at the top of the bitcoin food chain.
Though I don't agree that there is no "normal person". Look at everyone at Blockstream (including Adam Back), people behind Ethereum, most old core devs (Gavin, Mike, etc).
Keep in mind that Bitcoin is very much cypherpunk (especially in the early days before 2013): even Neo from the Matrix was a criminal before he got plugged out. Building a new wild west of digital money is of course going to attract certain type of people.
That doesn't mean it's a scam. The US we know today was build on top of the "new frontier", and not all people were as clean as a whistle back then. The current trends in consumer tech come from Apple, a company that started with a system to hack long distance call infrastructure (blue box).
Reread the first sentence I quoted from spookthesunset. Surely Andreas is a "spokesperson," insofar as Bitcoin has any -- I can find examples of popular media calling him a "Bitcoin Evangelist," plenty of interviews with mainstream news, etc. "Top of the foodchain" is a hard to pin down moving goalpost -- only one person is at the top of the foodchain, so anyone I can name won't count if you can find a single other person higher than them by any metric.
I'm not disagreeing with your more constrained claimed regarding Bitcoin and criminality, it was the broad claim of spookthesunset that I found ridiculous (which you seem to as well, perhaps for slightly different reasons -- I didn't really even want to poke at the term "normal person," given that the sort of people who work on cryptographic-Rube-Goldberg-machines aren't exactly normal by all standards, and that's okay, it's just a lot to unpack and not what spookthesunset was really getting at).
In retrospect, I do feel like I should have quoted less from spookthesunset.
Update - I listened to Kraken's 'podcast' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QB0OQae4fWo and they think the most likely is Quadriga lost some ETH, gambled to make it up, lost / stole money in the previous year, then Cotten dying was a coincidence - the money was already missing.
> Did Michael/Omar travel to India with Cotten on the trip that Cotten died?
Given that Cotton and his wife were in India largely for their honeymoon (and secondarily to celebrate the opening of the orphange they in part funded), it's highly unlikely that his former business associate would have traveled to India with them. If you read the 2nd linked article Patryn claims that he left the company around 2016 after a falling out.
I smelled an odor when I first read about the 'orphanage'. Awww, how nice. Today I read the gift's details, and the odor's stronger.
"Mr. Cotten’s money, however, did not buy an orphanage. It bought materials, but Mr. Cherukupalli had to arrange the construction himself. And the materials were insufficient – there was enough for walls and furnishings, but not enough.... Mr. Cherukupalli began to accumulate more debt as he secured labour and additional materials."
In further goings on it seems:
>The co-founder of troubled cryptocurrency exchange QuadrigaCX is a convicted felon who served time in the United States for his role in an online identity-theft ring
'Michael Patryn', who changed his name and had a nose job https://outline.com/TdWDgM
My guess is Cotten died and the latter is trying to keep the money