QuadrigaCX co-founder Michael Patryn’s history worrisome

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Another day dawns and even more upsetting news emerges for QuadrigaCX customers. One of QuadrigaCX’s founders, Michael Patryn, allegedly was convicted of crimes, changes his name, and possible wasted away millions by trading cryptos.

Canadian news outlet The Globe and Mail did a bit of investigative reporting into Patryn. They uncovered several documents of an Omar Dhanani, a California man who was a member of the online marketplace Shadowcrew.com. That site was used to trade stolen identities and credit card numbers. Dhanani pleaded guilty to identity theft charges for that activity.

The documents The Globe obtained from local police in New Jersey indicate that Dhanani and Patryn are the same person.

The Globe has confronted Patryn several times with this information, starting from February 8. He’s denied any knowledge of the link and told the outlet, “While I obviously disagree with your conclusions, I have to wait for counsel prior to responding more thoroughly, which is unlikely to happen before your deadline.”

They also linked Patryn, under the alias Omar Patryn, to a digital currency exchange service that opened in April 2008, called M-Gold.com. That site mostly traded in the LR currency, created by Liberty Reserve. Liberty Reserve was shut down in 2016 by American authorities on charges of money laundering and other unlawful activities.

Only six months after Liberty Reserve was shut down, Patryn joined Gerald Cotten to start QuadrigaCX.

It may be that Patryn has left some really bad looking posts on Reddit as well. U.Today believes the reddit handle ‘MikeXBT’ belongs to Patryn. The handle was active up until February 3, discussing posts relating to QuadrigaCX with apparent inside knowledge of what was happening.

They found one post of MikeXBT claiming to put $8 million on a long position. Further research reveals him discussing buying multiple condo developments, and several other discussions in the BitcoinMarkets subreddit, with hundreds of thousands traded.

None of those things are a crime of course. Considering however that QuadrigaCX can’t find the millions it needs to pay back its creditors, Patryn’s sketchy history, and these millions traded, the story looks worse every day.