The QuadrigaCX saga has taken another interesting turn as Bloomberg revealed that one of the co-founders of the exchange is a convict.
The March 19 report by Bloomberg detailed that Michael Patryn, who co-founded the troubled Canadian crypto exchange with Gerald Cotten in 2013, was involved with multiple crimes in the United States, including identity theft.
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The publication alleged that Patryn, who was previously known as Omar Dhanani, legally changed his name twice with the British Columbia authorities in Canada – once in 2003 and again in 2008. In a February 8 Globe and Mail report, he denied any such claims.
A Serial Convict
Dhanani was charged with a number of crimes in the US, and in 2005 pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit credit and bank card fraud. He was also involved in the operation of the infamous shadowcrew.com, a defunct online marketplace for trafficking stolen credit and bank card numbers, according to Bloomberg.
He was also charged with burglary, grand larceny, and computer fraud, and in 2017, he once again admitted his crimes to a California court.
After serving his time in the United States, he re-emerged as a Bitcoin entrepreneur and, as seen on his Linkedin profile, Patryn is also the founder and chairman of Vancouver-based Fintech Ventures Group.
Bloomberg also reported that he tried to purge all online records about his past by hiring a firm.
A Silent Partner
Although Patryn and Cotten together laid the foundation of QuagrigaCX, Patryn parted ways from the exchange in 2016 citing “fundamental disagreement” with his partner over the decision of listing process of the firm.
Though Patryn was not involved in the exchange’s operations since then, he and his partner Lovie Horner remained two largest shareholders of QuadrigaCX, according to Globe and Mail.
Background of the Troubled Exchange
Though the trouble for the Canadian crypto exchange started long ago with a dispute with its creditors, the exchange was pushed into an awkward situation with the untimely death of its CEO last year. Cotten did create any backup of passwords of the exchange’s vaults, which resulted in a lockdown of around $190 million worth cryptocurrencies.
The exchange recently gained 45-days extension from a Canadian court to look for the missing funds.