Note: Transcripts may contain errors. If you wish to re-use all, or part of, a transcript, please contact CBC for permission. Please check the corresponding audio before quoting in print. Copyright © CBC 2021

The Current Transcript for July 16, 2021

Host: Mark Kelley

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

You know, our community is grieving. We all have to take time to absorb what we're told, what we've seen and we're still grappling through the effects.

MATT GALLOWAY: The discovery of unmarked graves on the grounds of former residential schools sent this country searching for answers, for healing, for reconciliation. This morning, the chiefs, of course, assistant to Kamloops First Nations are here to talk about the pain and the path ahead. And in 30 minutes.

SOUNDCLIP

The [unintelligible] glove that I wore on my right hand signified the power in black America. And this I thought that I could represent my people by letting them know that I'm proud to be a black man.

MK: That was 1968. You likely know the famous image of the man we just heard, Tommie Smith and his fellow American sprinter, John Carlos, raising their fists in a black power salute on the podium at the Mexico City Olympics. Well, now it's 2021. And once again, there is controversy over athletes being forbidden from taking any kind of political stance on the podium. We'll check in with former Olympians about the power of protest. Also this morning, we'll bring you Episode four of the CBC podcast, A Death in Cryptoland. But we start with two chiefs, one country and the stories buried in those unmarked graves. Good morning. I'm Mark Kelley and you're listening to The Current.

[Music: Theme]

Survivors face reopened trauma, but work to identify residential school graves must continue, say chiefs

Guests: Chief Rosanne Casimir, Chief Cadmus Delorme

MK: A warning we're talking about residential schools, which may be distressing to some listeners.

SOUNDCLIP

We are not here for retaliation. We are here for truth telling. We are here today to honour the missing children in our caretake ship who have experienced unthinkable circumstances leading to their death and whose remains were placed in unmarked graves.

MK: That's Kukpi7 or Chief Rosanne Casimir of Tk'emlumps te Secwepemc at a public presentation Thursday about the research done on the grounds of the former Kamloops residential school. The results of their ground penetrating radar study left many people across Canada in a state of shock and grief. And because the initial search only covered about one hectare of a 65 hectare site, researchers said there is reason to believe more remains will be found. I'm joined now by Kukpi7 Casimir, as well as Chief Cadmus Delorme from Cowessess First Nation, who is also at work on the painful task of recovery in his community. Thank you both for being here.

CHIEF CASIMIR: Thank you.

CHIEF DELORME: Thank you, Mark.

MK: Chief Kazimir, I'd like to start with you. You said in your delivery this is heavy truth. How are you dealing with as you deliver this heavy truth?

CHIEF CASIMIR: Well, it was definitely a heavy truth to be, you know, sharing, you know, publicly. And, you know, for me, the most important thing is I had my community members here. I had my leadership here, and I had, you know, the regional chief as well as our international chief here, you know, all witnessing the information that was being shared and the support that was, you know, completely stood up.

MK: You mentioned in your notes you said not retaliation. What did you mean by that?

CHIEF CASIMIR: So what I meant by not retaliation is, you know, we can't change what happened in the past. We have to find a path moving forward. But we also have to look at uncovering those truths and having that resolve for our members and for, you know, everyone that was impacted from sending their children to the Kamloops Indian residential school.

MK: And when when you say we are you thinking also beyond your nation, beyond other indigenous people, do you think we all need to to share in this truth?

CHIEF CASIMIR: Yes, I definitely agree that we all need to share in that truth, because the biggest thing is, you know, we need to map a way forward, one that's going to bring peace, to the missing, the children, the families that have been impacted and of course, non-First Nations shared in that grief and that loss as well, especially learning of the truth and truly hearing those truths and the acknowledgement of those truth. So definitely that path forward needs to really exemplify that.

MK: Chief Delorme, a few weeks have passed now since the discovery of the 751 unmarked graves on the Cowessess First Nation, how are people in your community processing this?

CHIEF DELORME: Thank you, Mark, and thank you, Chief, for the great leadership you're doing. You know, two weeks ago Cowessess First Nation told our story and our main focus was the listeners, especially the residential school survivors and family and friends of survivors. And we knew that the gravesite was going to be the conversation. It was going to be the moment of truth, as chief just said. But the triggering of the intergenerational trauma that exists with the truth, whether it was our concern and it was all overwhelming because how to get to all of our survivors, both on and off the reserve, was next to impossible. So we started to assure the one 866 number was available. Secondly, the interest of the world wanting to know more. It was a lot. And we prepared the visitors and the technical team had to take a little break because we didn't want the technical side to be a part of the media. We still are confirming the 751. We still are using other means rather than the radar penetrating. And so the last two weeks we have learnt a lot. But the amount of people who say we stand by causes has been uplifting and gratitude is shown everywhere to learn.

MK: You mentioned you said the interest of the world. Tell me about that. Tell me about the people who want to hear your story.

CHIEF DELORME: Canada is a is a developed country. Canada is a G7 country. And, you know, people first time Canadians, get here and this is, you know, the destiny. This is the goal to get to Canada. And this is a story that reflects to Canada as to what happened. And so internationally, we have been sharing right across the world, I mean, [unintelligible], China, Russia, Brazil and USA. And the same question always came up. What's your reflection on Canada now? And, you know, when I set it on Canada Day, I said, you know, we're not looking to cancel Canada, but this is a moment in Canada's history where let's let's just reflect let's see. Let's bring out the truth and reconciliation. Let's make it happen internally. The amount of proud Canadians that have reached out, Roman Catholic faith goers who have reached out is, you know, all of our years of trying to speak the truth. Their ears are listening. And we wanted to make sure that we stand by the truth because reconciliation cannot come until the truth prevails.

MK: Chief Casimir, you first spoke in late May with the initial revelation and you said you wanted to keep people informed. Why did you feel it necessary to have this latest presentation to tell people about and give them an update?

CHIEF CASIMIR: Well, we definitely found it was extremely important to be able to share the information from the report, because when I first shared with the world the information of the preliminary findings, I mentioned that there is a report that we're waiting for to substantiate the information that I was providing somewhere towards mid-June and we are into July. So, I know that it's something that everyone's been waiting for. And I just wanted to note that, you know, the delay in our report was also due because of the wildfires that has been happening here with us in BC and especially surrounding Kamloops and in Kamloops. And we would also opened up our [unintelligible] for evacuees. And so, we've had a lot on our plates here and working to make sure that come up to respect for the reporter and the caretakers, for the children, but also for the opening our doors to the evacuees as well and bringing them into the community and making sure that everyone had a safe place and space to reprieve and come to terms with everything that's been going on in every every aspect. So I just wanted to also share that.

MK: Yeah. I can't imagine what your community has gone through, especially as those fires continue to burn. To Chief Delorme, you said you wanted to put names to the unmarked graves. You've gone through a lot already. Just how emotional will it be to do that? And how important do you feel it will be to do that?

CHIEF DELORME: It is. It is needed, it will happen. Realistically, will every unmarked grave have a name? Probably not. But at least now there will be a marker there, something to indicate, you know, a body lies here. We are working with the Roman Catholic Church, the archdiocese, with our own internal elders, knowledge keepers who who have kept some records that they can recall, and memories. Of. You know, I have had elders that said, 'My sister is over here somewhere,' so that is the end goal. We are going to get there one day at a time. That's our focus.

MK: Chief Casimir, you mentioned in your remarks that you felt a responsibility as well to identify and repatriate remains. But a survivor participating in the presentation also expressed her wish. Let's just listen to Evelyn Kameel.

SOUNDCLIP

What I would like to see is the burial site to be left undisturbed. Yes, they may have to be some studies to be done, but what good are those studies going to do for us, for an individual, for me? It's good to tell me that, yes, they were murdered [unintelligible], is that going to make me feel better? I don't think so.

MK: Chief Casimir, how how do you reconcile that, the fact that you you want to learn more, but at the same time the the pain that that's unearthing.

CHIEF CASIMIR: I definitely acknowledge our elders' pain and the trauma that has been reopened and surfacing again. But I also know, too, that the school housed First Nation children, not only here at TTS, but throughout B.C., the U.S. and the Yukon, and some in Alberta as well. And so from the beginning, that's something, you know, having discussions that we want to work with all the chiefs of the communities that have had sent their children to our residential school, I should say, were taken from their communities to attend the residential school. And so we want to make sure that for those that didn't return home, again it's about that utmost respect and dignity. So we are working with our elders group, our survivors group and our family representative groups as well looking to create that path forward. So, you know, this is still early. And, you know, we want to make sure that we bring all the survivors together to share how they would like to see the care and respect and the steps moving forward and the different options of those steps moving forward.

MK: Chief Delorme, are you hearing that in causus as well as some people saying let let's just leave the site undisturbed?

CHIEF DELORME: Not undisturbed, but how to get to the end goal is agreeing to disagree. And What I mean by that is Cowessess is diverse. And we're very proud of our diversity. We have Roman Catholic faith goers that are citizens that, you know, think differently of this gravesite because it was a Roman Catholic Church gravesite. And we have some that, you know, intergenerational trauma is real and it's very deeply rooted in the healing and pain that some are trying to live and get strength to move past. And they have certain perspectives. And then there's some that have persevered. They have persevered from the real truth and have now gained strength to move forward. And so the the the situation was in and I tell other chiefs this that call, and leaders, just remember that this is trauma enduring. And, you know, the agree to disagree will happen. And, you know, I can only imagine, my fellow chief on what she's dealing with because we are trying to make sure that this doesn't trigger in a negative way. And that's what we're dealing with.

MK: On the other part of trauma, I guess part of a component of that is accountability. The NDP MP Mumilaaq Qaqqaq has called for a special prosecutor to investigate crimes against children at residential schools. Chief Casimir, what do you think of that idea?

CHIEF CASIMIR: I think, you know, definitely favourable. There's been so many different questions that have been asked, especially it being a crime scene and, you know, is this acts of genocide? So I think having a special prosecutor be a part of that path forward, I think would be that level of technical expertise that's going to substantiate the truth, that need to be fully acknowledged in that path forward, especially when it comes towards everyone grappling with reconciliation.

MK: Chief Delorme, you've called the burial site in your nation a crime scene, so what does accountability look like for you in Saskatchewan?

CHIEF DELORME: There is an act that it is illegal to remove headstones. Our headstones were removed in around 1960, give or take a year or two. And does that act today refer to back then? So so that is what we're assessing right now as a crime scene.

MK: But who could be held accountable for that today?

CHIEF DELORME: So in 1960, the priest had the authority to save these headstones. It was the priest who gave the final authority to have these headstones removed. So from this perspective we are, in today, we inherited this the Roman Catholic Church, the local archdiocese whose name is Don, he has been in name and I are in constant contact. It's not done personally, but it was the Roman Catholic Church that allowed this to happen. And so that is why when we say this is a potential crime scene, the RCMP said, when you're ready for this, we will come in and do our part to assess it, to see if it fits within any laws that they can enforce.

MK: Chief Casimir, we mentioned at the outset the only two acres of 160 acres site have been searched. What are you expecting and what are you telling your community to expect as far as the search continues?

CHIEF CASIMIR: So We are telling our community, knowing that we've only had one section, that there is going to be further investigation and more groundwork that's going to be done. And knowing also to the oral stories that have also been shared by our survivors and also that further investigation is definitely needed to ensure that we locate all the missing children in our caretakership.

MK: I want to thank you both for for talking with us today and for sharing your your path with us and your grief with us. And I wish you well in the in the days and weeks ahead.

CHIEF DELORME: Thank you, Mark. Thank you, Chief.

CHIEF CASIMIR: All right. Thank you both.

MK: Rosanne Casimir is Kukpi7 of Tk'emlup te Secwepemc. We reached her in Kamloops, B.C.. Cadmus Delorme Alarm is chief, of course, First Nation. He was in Cumberland House, Saskatchewan. We want to hear from you. CBC has a new indigenous led team investigating the impacts and harms caused by residential schools. If you have information, tips or a story to share, email us at this address: wherearethey@cbc.ca. And if you need trauma support, there is a 24 hour National Indian residential school crisis line at 1 866 925 4419. Kukpi7 Cas imir mentioned the support at her side as she made her presentation yesterday, one of the survivors who bore witness and spoke was Leona Thomas. Here's part of her story.

Speaker 6: [sc]

Initially, I said no to this request. But I think it's really important for younger generations to understand, to be informed and be educated. And moving forward. I remember my first day entering that building across the river. I was six years old. From 1958 to 1963, inclusive. And then 64, 65, 66, 67 to the school. I was taken from a loving home that only knew humour, laughter, love and honour, put into a cold, stark environment that didn't honour or respect who we were, that could not comfort a six year old who was crying, wanting to go home or wanting to be with her brother, whom she was not allowed to speak with. I jumped on my brother's back going through those front doors. And they had to pry me from him, I was a first time were ever separated. For those of you who have children that age, grandchildren that age, just imagine what that would feel like. I was put into a dancing group that learnt every ethnic dance except my own. I knew how to Irish jig, I knew how to [unintelligible], I knew how to do the Mexican hat dances. And through that learning process, this is where the abuse was really amplified. It took me a long time to be able to cry. It was difficult to be able to share emotions. Today, not so much. I cry when I'm happy, I cry when I'm sad and I cry when I'm joyful. I'm grateful for my late aunt. As I entered my teenage years to bring a group of us from our community to learn our own songs and dance. I proudly shared the swan song and taught my granddaughters when they were young, to create an understanding of where they come from, a part of where they come from.

MK: That was Leona Thomas, survivor of the Kamloops Indian Residential School. The CBC News is next. Then.

SOUNDCLIP

The podium with all the symbolism that comes with your flight being raised, your anthem being played. That's why athletes target the podium. There's a hush in the crowd. You are visible to the entire world.

MK: There will be a lot of those hushed podium moments in Tokyo. But according to the IOC rules, athletes are not allowed to use the podium for any kind of political or social protest in six minutes. Three people who have lived their own Olympic dreams will be here to weigh in. I'm Mark Kelley. You're listening to The Current.

Canadian athletes weigh in on the power — and consequences — of Olympic protest

Guests: Waneek Horn-Miller, Mark Tewsbury, Angela Whyte

MK: Hello, I'm Mark Kelley, and you're listening to The Current.

[Music: Theme]

MK: Still to come, the fourth episode of the CBC podcast, A Death in Cryptoland, starts with an arrest of a wig wearing man at an ATM. It's a story with fraudsters, online aliases and millions of missing dollars. But first, we turn our attention to Tokyo and the prohibition of podium protests.

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

I never said that I didn't want to go to the Olympic Games. That's why I competed and got third and made the thing. I never said that I hated the country, never said that. All I said was I respect my people enough to not stand or not do something that disrespects them. I love my people. Point blank, period.

MK: That was American hammer thrower Gwen Berry talking about the backlash she faced for turning her back to the U.S. flag while on the podium at an Olympic trial last month. Now, some House Republicans have asked the U.S. Olympic Committee to remind athletes not to use the world stage to make what they call, quote, divisive, hateful and anti-American statements.

SOUNDCLIP

If you know your history, you know the full song of the national anthem. The third paragraph speaks to slaves in America. Our blood being slang and filtered all over the floor, it's disrespectful and it does not speak for black Americans. It's obvious there's no there's no question.

MK: Gwen Berry was protesting in the U.S. in Tokyo. Olympic athletes will not be able to do what she did. The International Olympic Committee has updated a long standing rule which banned protests and political statements. During the Games, olympians can protest in interviews or in social media even before a competition, but certainly not on the podium under threat of fines. I'm joined now by three Canadian Olympians. Waneek Horn-Miller is a Mohawk water polo player who competed in the Sydney Games. Angela Whyte is a hurdler who competed in Athens, Rio and Beijing. And Mark Tewksbury has won gold, silver and bronze in swimming and competed in the Barcelona and Seoul Olympics. He's also the VP of the board for the Canadian Olympic Committee. Good morning to you all.

WANEEK HORN-MILLER: Good morning.

ANGELA WHYTE: Morning.

MK: Waneek, let me start with you and, you know, we heard from Gwen Berry there was one thing for her to make her gesture to turn her back. But then came the backlash. What did you make of that?

WANEEK HORN-MILLER: Being an athlete doesn't make you a non-political being, doesn't make you sensitive, nor actually a victim to racism and the communal experience of your people. It's what drives a lot of us to succeed. We want to prove the world wrong. We want to make our statement. We want to you know, we want to show the world how strong we are. But it doesn't insulate us from the impacts of what is happening on a daily basis to indigenous people, black people, people of colour, the LGBTQ community, everybody. And so this backlash, to be expected, is also I think it's an unrealistic expectation to think that these athletes are not going to after an entire lifetime of struggle and putting everything they have, their passion, so much work into achieving basically at the top of their their field to not want to raise awareness about who they are. And that feeling of needing justice and to find justice and use your platform is extremely strong. And it is expected in many ways of people from those communities, from the indigenous community, the black community, to to kind of speak out. So I think that it's unfair. And I think she's exactly right in what she's saying.

MK: Angela, Gwen Berry was was saying that the Olympic movement is hypocritical. You know, athletes are celebrated for their courage, their drive, their tenacity on the field or in the pool or whatever their venue may be. But but not when they're on the podium, not when they're expressing their political views. How do you feel about that?

ANGELA WHYTE: I looked more into it, and one word that keeps coming up is neutrality. And to expect that the Olympic Games are neutral when they never have been. Just looking back at one of the most famous, the Olympics, the 1936 Berlin Games, that was completely a show of Hitler's it was Hitler's games and it was used as a propaganda tool for their message. But then we saw other messages coming out with performances of black athletes most spectacularly, Jesse Owens, to kind of go against what Hitler was trying to do with those games. So I find it really it is hypocritical. I think corporations have free reign to use the Games as they please to to to forward their agendas. And I I'd like to echo what Waneek said as far as you know, athletes train their entire lives to to reach this moment. And if an athlete has something in their heart that they want to express and peacefully, again, most of these athletes are doing it peacefully with gestures to bring awareness to it to an issue. And I would expect that if you've come to this point in your life and if you didn't do it, I feel like athletes would regret it for the rest of their lives.

MK: Mark Tewksbury, you're an Olympian, but as I mentioned, you're also on the board for the Canadian Olympic Committee. How do you see this? Is this the right moment to protest the Olympics?

MARK TEWSBURY: Well, it's a really important discussion to have. And hi Waneek and Angela. Nice to be with you on the issue. I mean, I faced some of the hypocrisy within the system myself back in 1996. I ran for the athletes commission. And interestingly, I wasn't allowed to have a platform. I was before I was kicked out of the Olympic Village, the athletes village, for trying to talk to people about what I would stand for. And it was under the guise of don't distract the athletes. And Waneek made a really good point that says, you know, just because we're great athletes doesn't mean that we're not political. And at the same time, it doesn't mean that everyone's politically driven. And I think how I look at this now, sitting at the board table of the Olympic Committee is how do we try to push the envelope and find a way for those that want to raise awareness of who they are, as we said beautifully, and do it in a way that is really impactful and still upholds the fundamental principles of Olympics. So it's respectful. It isn't in your face for competitor before you're competing, because as we all know, no one wants to do that and distract our competitors and win that way. Right? So I think there's a way to do this. And I'm encouraged that the bar's being moved slightly to to do that. And I can give some specific examples a little bit later.

MK: Yeah, but where can you do it now, Mark? As I mentioned off the top, the IOC has has tweaked the rules a little. So where can you make the these these political gestures now at the Olympics?

MARK TEWSBURY: So the biggest surprise for me is that you can actually do it in the moments that you're being introduced. And so for Angela and I, that's a bit intense because it's a quick introduction and a flash of our face. So we would have to pre-plan something because you couldn't unfurl a flag or something because that's not within the rules. But you're allowed to do something. So in Waneek's case, an entire team could do something in that moment. They're introduced and I would before the games, you can have any kind of statement at your press conference. I would lay out why I'm doing that as a team. We're taking a knee or we're doing something because of whatever the issue is. And so that you really you make an impact with your statement. So that's a huge thing. You're also allowed to speak in the mix zone. So you're allowed to use social media, which is relatively new. You're allowed to express your views there during the Olympic Games. You're also allowed to say whatever you'd like at your press conferences.

MK: OK, I want to play a clip from one of the history's most famous Olympic moments after American sprinters John Carlos, Tommie Smith raised their fists in support for the Black Power movement, the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City.

SOUNDCLIP

TOMMIE SMITH: The right glove that I wore on my right hand signified the power within black America. The left of my team-mate John Carlos the one in his left hand, made an art. My right hand to his left hand also signify black unity.

INTERVIEWER: Do you think you represented all black athletes in doing this?

TOMMIE SMITH: I can say I represented black America.

MK: Angela, when you hear that, I mean, of course, I'm sure you're familiar with that moment that was on the podium when after they'd received their medals that would be prohibited this day. Do you agree with that position?

ANGELA WHYTE: I don't think I necessarily agree with it being prohibited, but I think there's a power in in protest being prohibited. I think that's what brings attention and the podium with all the symbolism that comes with your your flag being raised, your anthem being played. That's why athletes target the podium, because that's a moment in time for as much as you can say in a press conference, for as much as you can say on social media, a lot of that can be ignored. But this is a moment in time where there's a hush in the crowd and and you are visible to the entire world. And I think that's why it's targeted. And we also can't forget the Australian athletes. Peter Norman, who was there also in solidarity with John Carlos and Tommie Smith. And he received a huge amount of backlash, lost his career. He was banned from, you know, he was kind of blacklisted from subsequent games that he qualified for. So I think there's something with it being prohibited that gives it even more power. And as long as athletes understand the consequences that come with it. But I think for athletes that have something that they are protesting for, a stance, a viewpoint that's very important for the world to see, I think that they're willing to take the consequences that come with using that specific platform, being on a podium to peacefully protest what it is that they want to protest.

MK: I interviewed Tommie Smith years ago about that moment and they didn't know exactly what they were going to do leading up to the podium, but they knew they had to do something. And Waneek, I want to ask you about that, as I mentioned, you're a Mohawk. You're from Ghana, Wilga, just outside of Montreal. Can you imagine if you were participating in these games now with what's going on in Canada, with reconciliation with with the residential schools, with the with the unmarked grave sites? What what would you feel compelled to be making a statement if you were at these games right now?

WANEEK HORN-MILLER: You know what, if I was competing at these games, I would play my absolute heart out, I would give everything that I had and that my people and my ancestors have to winning the games and being a good team-mate and, you know, being as strong as I possibly could. But I cannot I mean, I probably 100 percent would be protesting on the podium because the absolute- like, there's no words for the amount of pain that is being felt within my community right now as a child of a residential school survivor, as a niece, as a as a cousin. Like this is just been, you know, it's permeating every ounce of who I am and, you know, honouring those children. Because when I think of those children, you know, and what I think of the opportunities I have, and have had going to the Olympics, all I can, I can't stop thinking about the talent that was lost, the opportunities that were lost, how many Olympians, potential Olympians were murdered. And that's you know, I'm standing there as, yes, as Waneek Horn-Miller, but also standing there with them surrounding me and, you know, showing the world that pain, but also that strength. And I mean, it is really hard right now to say, you know, I wouldn't and I would uphold and, you know, the Olympic movement is supposed to be about peace and about unity and all these things. But the reality is, if you don't acknowledge first what's going on in the world, the pain and and the hurt, and in Canada, what's happening that you can't get to peace. It's a whitewashed, varnished idea from some noble understanding in Europe of what peace is. It's not the reality of how we're going to get there. And so I think this is a really important thing is you have to get to where we want to go. We're going to have to go through this and we are going to have to allow our athletes to show it. But also they're going to go there and give everything they have to win those medals. And we have to honour that, too. And we have to acknowledge that.

MK: Mark, I want to ask you about the IOC. If we look at, you know, this is all about the athletes and the three of, you know, this best, that that's what the the Olympic Games are all about. And if you look at other leagues like the NBA, the NFL, Major League Baseball, they're making all their money off the athletes. And what they've done is they're allowing the athletes to make their political protest because they know that athletes cannot just be athletes. So in that sense, is the IOC being a little tone deaf by not giving them free reign to do what they want to do peacefully? Of course.

MARK TEWSBURY: Please don't put me in a position to defend the IOC. I'm sorry, but let's do that. But listen, it's slightly different in that. Do you go through the top sponsorship programme? It's not ideal and perfect by any stretch. But the good side is that all of that money goes into a huge part and that part goes back to international federations and national and the committees in sport development. And that's how much of the money that drives the international sports movement. And so, you know, without the Olympics, all of those federations and all of that movement would be in jeopardy. But listen, I want to go back to to this conversation because I think I love what Angela said about the power of prohibition. Basically, that's what makes it so impactful. And I think we're all seeing the same thing. I just I feel for me personally, I think it would be more impactful. So I would say at the beginning of the games, even as a gay white Canadian male, I would say, you know, I'm playing for all the children lost in residential schools. And before, every time you see you compete, you're going to see an orange square on my bathing cap. And this is what it represents. And I want you to think about every time you see what you can do to make a difference. And then I would have some concrete things at the end after I'm finished competing. I don't know if on the podium I would use that moment. That's just very slightly different from the other panellists. But I do agree. I think to Angela's point, if we all use the body and it loses its power, which is really interesting. So in a way, by closing it off, you've actually just in a way enhanced the problem.

MK: OK, I want to play another clip for you three. This is from Canadian Olympic wrestler Jasmine Meehan speaking to CBC in September of last year.

SOUNDCLIP

The consequences of speaking out are very different. Even if we give all athletes from around the world the same rights to protest on the podium, the consequences for them in their home country are going to be very different. I also think athletes have to realise that we're talking about one percent of athletes here. So few athletes make it to the games and even fewer land on the Olympic podium. We have the power to get on the political agenda at home and I don't see athletes taking that opportunity. I think it would be incredibly powerful if we came together as a collective and said, look, we're not going to go to Tokyo next year. And until and unless the government is willing to make progress on certain policy issues that we have at home or that exist internationally. I think waiting to talk about this on the Olympic podium actually misses our biggest opportunity to do too true activism.

MK: But one of the points you is making there, too, with consequences. And I remember in my conversation with Tommie Smith, he was ruined after he got back to China, to the U.S., broke and ended up playing wide receiver in the CFL because he needed to get a job. Angela, I wonder about that. But the fear of consequences that you can be ruined financially and professionally just for speaking out. Is that hanging over the heads of athletes?

ANGELA WHYTE: You know, I think it differs for for all athletes. There are some athletes that have way more to lose. True. I know for myself, I was never really financially bolstered by by participating in my sport some years, just lucky enough to make it by. Whereas other athletes have a lot of sponsorship and they have a lot of things that that can go up in flames. So I think it just depends. But there are going to be consequences and I think that's a part of it. And as long as athletes are OK with those consequences and I think a lot of them are, but I do agree with Jasmine that the podium is one part of it. And obviously it creates enough stir. Just even with the Gwen Berry situation at selection trials, where, to tell you the honest truth, if I'm getting this correct, the anthem was being played as a part of the opening for that day of competition. It was not being played. Yeah, it was not being played for the medal ceremony for the the Women's Hammer throw.

MK: She said she felt it was being played deliberately in a way to almost beat her into doing something. But that that that's debateable.

ANGELA WHYTE: It's debateable for sure. And I think, you know, the timing was a little suspicious because the apparently the days before they had been doing it at a certain time and for some reason it was delayed until this moment. So it seems a little suspicious. So really, I think activism comes in so many different forms and protesting on the podium or like Mark said beforehand, which I think is very noble, is a part of it. As long as we can continue that snowball effect, hopefully to get real sustained change happening within government systems, within our communities. And we have to realise that this is just a symbol of movements that are happening all around us. There is a lot of work that is being put in behind the scenes with many different amazing organisations. And yes, athletes have a voice. And this is one way we can bring attention. But we also, yeah, we could do something greater where we decide to come together and completely protest going to a games. I know Tommie Smith and John Carlos, they talked about that, but then decided they wanted to use their performance as a way to speak to it, just like Waneek you said she would play her heart out when. So you can show because here's the end of it. We equate winning with goodness. So however you want to see that, we automatically do. And if we can use winning and equating it with goodness for actual good, there's nothing that like I feel like great things can come from that.

MK: You know, of course, that there's a lot of people out there, though, who may subscribe to the school of thought that says shut up and dribble, as was told to LeBron James famously. Waneek, do you feel that perhaps athletes feel the pressure to do something when they don't really feel that they should be speaking out or they don't feel that it is their job to speak to it? Does that put added pressure on the shoulders of some athletes?

WANEEK HORN-MILLER: Well, I think that, you know, in particular, when you have team sports, you have to navigate like the team environment and like as being an indigenous athlete on with a whole bunch of non-native team-mates. I even remember the attention I got and talking about how the attention it can cause division and issues on teams. But, you know, and that would that was a big concern for me. And it was always something that I was worried about. But you know what? I think that, you know, if you have a good team environment and you do foster that, I think it is something that a lot of team-mates will support. But I wouldn't ever, I wouldn't expect my team-mates to do it if they didn't feel comfortable. This is something that you have to, like, believe in. And like Angela and Mark said, there are consequences. And this is a real thing, like when I hear of saying, hey, we should boycott the games collectively. I also think about like the hopes and dreams of people who feel like, well, if I don't go along with this, I'm going to be blackballed, too, with the council culture that we have that's very powerful, the whole online world. So I'm thinking in my myself, you know, and specifically recently with a safe sport movement and talking about athletes and current athletes are trying to do their best. They're currently competing. They are dealing with many, many power structures that could just destroy their career. I know that having gone through that and speaking out my sport against abuse, it ended my career way earlier than I wanted to. So it is people like us who are on this talking today, the retired Olympians, the people like the Clara Hughes is in the Perdita Feliciana. Who are you using their platform to speak out, I think is even more important now that we help those currently competing athletes and try to take some of that burden off of their shoulders and and and get out there into Canadian society. And we need to use our, you know, our platform continuously to raise those issues.

MARK TEWSBURY: Can I jump in here.

MK: Yes, go ahead.

MARK TEWSBURY: You know, I just struck by that. You know, winning is is connected with goodness, like Angela said. And really, that was my driving force of why I use my platform in 1998 to say I'm gay, which was like, you know, a big revelation at that moment in time. But I thought people have so much goodwill towards me. I'm going to challenge it. I'm going to use that to see if I can shift their their thinking on this particular issue. A couple months later, I took on the IOC and played Olympic advocates together honourably, and it was difficult to find 50 athletes worldwide that were willing to speak up and be active. And I called thousands of people or, you know, reached out. So I'm really encouraged to see that activism is on the rise. But I think it points made by Winnik and Angela, and it is kind of also the onus of us that are out of competition to keep using our platforms and that leadership and example for the next generation.

MK: Well, we're a week away from these Olympic Games will be interesting to find out if there will be that moment for these games. I want to thank you all for speaking to us. A tremendous conversation. Thank you so much.

WANEEK HORN-MILLER: Thank you, everybody.

MK: Waneek Horn Miller is a water polo player who competed for Canada at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney. Angela Whyte is a hurdler who has competed at three Summer Olympics. And Mark Tewksbury is a swimmer who won gold at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona. Coming up after your regional update, a mysterious death in millions of dollars lost in the aether of the cryptocurrency world. Episode four of A Death in Cryptoland is coming your way in 90 seconds. I'm Mark Kelley. You're listening to The Current.

Episode 4 of A Death in Cryptoland

Speaker 1: I'm Mark Kelley, and you're listening to The Current. This week, we're bringing you the original CBC podcast, A Death in Cryptoland. There was a lot of hype in the budding Bitcoin community when the small Canadian based cryptocurrency exchange Quadriga CX seemed to have a meteoric rise. Then in early twenty nineteen news spread that not only had its CEO Gerald Cotten, died on his honeymoon in India, but he'd been dead for a month. It set off a series of events that shook the cryptocurrency world. A quarter of a billion dollars worth of customer funds was gone. And two years on, conspiracy theories persist, leaving many asking, is he really dead? In this chapter of a death in crypto land, host Takara Small reveals some early red flags in the story.

SOUNDCLIP

MICHAEL PATRON: He was a very interesting kid, ran a few projects together and eventually we settled in Vancouver and at one point Gerry mentioned wanting to run an exchange. So it provided the seed funding to charity to launch Quadriga.

TAKARA SMALL: That's Michael Patrón. Quadriga is co-founder. He's on his cell from somewhere in Thailand. One of our co-workers spoke with him not long after the news came out that Jerry had died. Michael's nickname for him had apparently been Sunshine.

MICHAEL PATRON: His lack of sunshine, the all that a big going to crack jokes all the time is to say he didn't open up to many people, but he was able to open up to me. And he was like a brother to me.

TAKARA SMALL: Like a brother, until they had a disagreement over the company. A huge fight, Michael calls it, but that would come later. Those first couple of years, they saw only successes. This is Gerry being interviewed at an industry convention in the Bahamas, talking up his credentials.

GERALD COTTEN: So one of the differences between Quadriga CX and a lot of our competitors is that I come from a background where I've dealt with digital currencies in the past. So I know the challenges that Bitcoin exchanges and any sort of digital currency faces.

TAKARA SMALL: He describes their meteoric rise.

GERALD COTTEN: So over two years, we began in December 2013, we've gone from zero market share to now 80 percent market share as most of our competitors have fizzled out.

TAKARA SMALL: And he had bigger ambitions.

GERALD COTTEN: For Quadriga, we're seeing quite a bit of blue sky. So as we expand globally and are able to tap into a lot of that market, we'll be able to grow on our profits will increase dramatically.

TAKARA SMALL: But in order for the company to grow, Jerry needed to change the optics, build public trust. Bitcoin had a bad rap, so we registered with Canada's anti money laundering watchdog, then Indrek. And less than a year after they formed the company, they had the idea to list Quadriga on the Canadian Securities Exchange.

ANTHONY: We're to start off by highlighting a few companies in the Toronto space here that are involved in crypto.

TAKARA SMALL: It all began one mild winter's evening in 2015 on St. Patrick's Day.

ANTHONY: We're going to start off with Gerald Cotten from Quadriga.

TAKARA SMALL: A little more than a year after founding Quadriga, Gerry has left Vancouver and is now in Toronto.

ANTHONY: Gerald, are you around here?

TAKARA SMALL: He's a guest speaker at a conference.

GERALD COTTEN: Thanks, Anthony. It's a pleasure to be here tonight in front of such a huge crowd that's so enthusiastic about Bitcoin and other decentralised technologies. So like Anthony was saying...

TAKARA SMALL: Gerry's hair is neatly combed back. He's standing stiffly in a dark suit, a crisp white shirt and a blue tie. He describes how the company started off pretty small, but that their fortunes are changing.

GERALD COTTEN: And over the past 12 months, we've exchanged more than 25 million dollars worth of Bitcoin.

TAKARA SMALL: He talks up Quadriga a bit more, then he pauses. He's got news.

GERALD COTTEN: We have announced that Rodrigues's will be going public, should be sometime next month and. Anyways, I'm thrilled to be at this event. I see it as a pivotal moment in the Bitcoin space. It's basically a new chapter as we move towards the mainstream financial industry.

TAKARA SMALL: And he smiles modestly and then exits stage left lives.

GERALD COTTEN: Thank you.

[Applause]

TAKARA SMALL: The little Canadian company echoed. It would have been huge, the first cryptocurrency exchange in the world to go public. Michael took charge of getting the company listed. He thought it would bolster their reputation.

MICHAEL PATRON: That this would create a lot of trust in the Quadriga [unintelligible].

TAKARA SMALL: Ironically, in case you missed that, he says it's ironic because he thought it would make Quadriga the most trusted crypto exchange a move to legitimise a space tainted by scandal. But going public would never come to pass.

ALEXANDRA POSADZKI: Bitcoin was very common with essentially criminals in its early days.

TAKARA SMALL: I'm on a video call with Alexandra Posadzki. She's a business reporter with the Globe and Mail newspaper in Toronto. She's got strikingly red curly hair and big glasses when Bitcoin was first invented, she says it didn't have a good reputation.

ALEXANDRA POSADZKI: It was very often used to launder money. So, you know, to move proceeds of crime because it has a sort of pseudo anonymity built into it, which means in the early days, if I wanted Bitcoin, I could open an account at one of these exchanges. And very often they would take very little or even no steps to actually verify that I am who I say that I am. And so even though every single Bitcoin transaction is actually technically public, it's recorded in this public ledger that anyone can witness. This shows this user sent this amount of cryptocurrency to this other user. You wouldn't know who the user is behind these accounts were necessarily. And so for that reason, Bitcoin was very common with essentially criminals in its early days.

GERALD COTTEN: It's kind of interesting because right now the regulation on Bitcoin in Canada is a total grey area. Oh, it's like the Wild West. It is because Bitcoin isn't a real currency, as far as the government is concerned.

TAKARA SMALL: This is Gerry on that podcast we mentioned before, True Bromance.

GERALD COTTEN: And as far as money laundering is concerned, it only matters when it comes to real currency. Therefore, it just the way the legislation is written, they want to do something about it. But until the government changes the legislation, there's nothing they can do.

ANTHONY: So as far as the government's concerned, it's monopoly money.

GERALD COTTEN: Exactly. That being said, I'm being proactive with regulations. So basically, I've done a bit more than I have to do.

ANTHONY: Going above and beyond.

GERALD COTTEN: Exactly.

TAKARA SMALL: Jerry, make sure they know Quadriga is registered with Canada's anti money laundering watchdog. Then he describes how this is supposed to keep his company in check.

GERALD COTTEN: So if someone walks into our office with 40 grand cash, we do get their ID. Yeah. And you have to mail that into the contract and say this person came in. No, we don't actually interact. Has told us don't mail it to us. Just in case.

ANTHONY: you keep all the records and then they could come in and you have a list of all.

GERALD COTTEN: Exactly. So in the event they're like so and so. A criminal came into your place last week and did this? Yeah,like I complied. I more than complied with the regulations. And so forth.

ANTHONY: Oh. So you would never stop anyone.

GERALD COTTEN: Oh well I would obviously stop someone if it was that blatant like case of fraud.

ANTHONY: But if somebody came in and they had like a hundred grand and it was some random person and there weren't a big chain and they got tattoos all over their face and many piercings, you know, like would you take the the 100 grand or no?

GERALD COTTEN: I mean, that's a kind of a ridiculous scenario. What are the odds of someone walking to my office?

ANTHONY: But if I happened, would you take the 100 grand or not?

GERALD COTTEN: Legally speaking, I'd comply with all the contracts requirements. I would say, OK.

ANTHONY: Yes.

TAKARA SMALL: There's a bit of dead air, I mean, that's a lot of cash, Gerry. And then he adds a caveat.

GERALD COTTEN: Generally speaking, for my clients who might be listening, please don't do that. I'd rather a bank transfer. So I'm not walking out of the office with 100 grand.

ANTHONY: Yes, yes. Yes. Yes, yes. Yes.

[Music]

TAKARA SMALL: In the run up to go public, Michael Patrón hires a consultant to help raise the money for the initial public offering. Here's Amy Castor, the freelance journalist in the U.S.

AMY CASTOR: and they raise a bunch of money. They raise like 850000 Canadian dollars from some major Canadian brokerage houses. But it never takes off, never happens. Instead, they burn through all the money. By June 2015, the companies just run out of money. It's lost. Forty five percent of its market share, according to pattern and pattern gets pissed off. And he blames...

TAKARA SMALL: And Michael launches a lawsuit against the consultant. But it never really goes anywhere. It's at this point, things get a little more interesting. Quadriga appears to morph.

AMY CASTOR: So Michael Patton steps away. As far as we know, what we're told, he steps away from Quadriga in 2016, he says, is because he disagrees with Gerald Cotten's decision to call off the listing of the company. What they're saying is that he wanted to continue to take the company public and Gerald didn't want to. So they parted ways.

TAKARA SMALL: And at the same time, a bunch of Quadriga directors stepped down all at once.

AMY CASTOR: And then at that time, from then on, you know, Quadriga is sort of becomes this one man show, Gerald Cotton. He's got a couple contractors that are helping him out. But mostly all the major decisions, everything is is coming from Gerald Cotten. Mr. Cotten. Yeah. Mr. Cottoe and his laptop. So so from then on, I mean, that's the narrative at least that we've been told by Cotten and Quadriga that Patrick stepped down and now it's just Gerald Cotten doing whatever he wants to do.

ANDREW WAGNER: People close to Quadriga inside or supportive of Gerry taking control,

TAKARA SMALL: Andrew Wagner is that Bitcoin believer in Vancouver who knew both Jerry and Michael. He says many of them thought it was the best. Up until then, it looked like Michael had control.

ANDREW WAGNER: We thought it was going to be better. But I think it was worse.

TAKARA SMALL: Although Cerry bragged about going out of his way to comply with regulations, it looks like he actually ignored them.

AMY CASTOR: The British Columbia Securities Commission says that Quadriga is now banned from selling securities altogether and they issue a cease trade order so that because apparently Quadriga has not submitted a financial audit for 2015 and all the regulatory filings, all the legit things that a Quadriga should have been doing sort of stopped.

TAKARA SMALL: In those texts which were leaked online, Gerry tells his operations manager, Aaron, that he hadn't renewed his track registration when it came due because it was more hassle than it was worth. An auditor had turned up at their office in Vancouver. Normally, Bitcoin companies weren't allowed to register with Interac, the regulatory agency wasn't set up to deal with digital currencies, so Quadriga arranged to offer the option to exchange U.S. dollars for Canadian and that qualified them. But then there was this audit. Gerry laughs about it in his text saying, "The girl who did it was about 25. She wanted to learn about Bitcoin and that she only wanted to see our Canadian to U.S. conversions, which we had done because no one used that service as well". So with no one watching, Gerry carried on with business. But there would be obstacles, some Gerry could have predicted, others not.

AMY CASTOR: One of the big issues that Quadriga faced when it when it launched was that it couldn't get banking. Banks don't want to deal with companies that are associated with cryptocurrency. So since they couldn't have Quadriga itself, could not as a business set up a bank account, what it had to do was it had to find workarounds. And it found these workarounds through what are called payment processors, right.

TAKARA SMALL: Payment processors are third parties, in this case, individuals or numbered companies, which would open bank accounts on behalf of Quadriga.

AMY CASTOR: The bank won't know what the money's for. Maybe they tell the bank a different story, like it's for real estate or whatever. And then if you are a Quadriga customer, you want to send money to Quadriga. The exchange would then direct you to send money to one of these bank accounts set up by one of their third party processors.

TAKARA SMALL: Over time, Quadriga worked with more than 10 of them. But in early 2018 troubles began with one of quadrillions processors, one of Canada's major banks, CIBC, observed some strange activity with a number of accounts.

ALEXANDRA POSADZKI: They got this influx of money into this these accounts, I think it raised a red flag for them just to have I think it was like north of 60 million dollars kind of flooding into these bank accounts all at once from hundreds of different sources. So that was kind of unusual.

TAKARA SMALL: CIBC had received some requests from Quadriga customers who had wired money to accounts belonging to the processor. But now these folks wanted their funds back. So the bank takes a look, but they can't figure out who the money belongs to.

AMY CASTOR: And they noticed some of the money being put into some of his personal accounts, too. And so they they see this sort of funny business happening. And so they freeze all these accounts,

TAKARA SMALL: accounts worth over twenty six million dollars Canadian, money Gerry would have been counting on. CIBC then goes to the courts to help decide who all this cash belongs to. And this came just months after the company had lost 10 million bucks worth of a cryptocurrency called either a software bug had permanently frozen hundreds of millions worth of assets worldwide. Not only that, the value of Bitcoin was changing. After hitting a high of nearly 20000 U.S. like a rollercoaster, it rounded a peak and then things really headed south, bottoming out below 3500 U.S.

AMY CASTOR: In 2018, the price begin to crash, so people were anxious to to sell their assets so they could realise their profits when they went to go take their money off of Quadriga, they couldn't get it off because Gerald Cotten didn't have the cash to fund their withdrawals.

QCX-INT: It was very slow getting the funds out of Quadriga.

TAKARA SMALL: QCX-Int and is the Quadriga customer turned sleuth who lost hundreds of thousands of dollars. He says initially he didn't see the red flags.

QCX-INT: This happens all the time in cryptid. It was business as usual. It's annoying, but we'll deal with it.

TAKARA SMALL: With so much of his cash on the exchange. He was directly in contact with Quadriga is director of operations.

QCX-INT: The lines of communication were good, and Aaron Matthews was reassuring other traders and including myself, that, yes, we've got a backlog of processing. We've got funds that are held up in this court case. You know, the notorious case where twenty five million of their funds had been frozen, which was true and verifiable.

TAKARA SMALL: So he believed them, even sympathising with a company's bank problems because that part of the story was true. It just wasn't the whole story. Gerry was hiding something. Alexandra Posawatz was hearing from Quadriga customers who were upset.

ALEXANDRA POSADZKI: They were having trouble getting money out of the exchange, so they had requested to get their money and then had waited weeks or even months and hadn't gotten their money yet. And they were very frustrated. So they wrote in to me asking if I could help them.

TAKARA SMALL: This piqued Alexandra's interest. It sounded like a story. Coincidentally, she and Jerry had gone to the very same school at the exact same time.

ALEXANDRA POSADZKI: I know we had friends, mutual friends in common on Facebook.

TAKARA SMALL: So Alexandra emails with Gerry.

ALEXANDRA POSADZKI: When I asked him about this eight million dollars that had been frozen, he told me that it was because of the bank and the banks don't like Bitcoin and the banks are so threatened by this new business model. And that was really interesting. He seemed to believe very strongly in what crypto stood for. And I think he also praised me for spelling his name right, because Cotten very often auto corrects to COTTON and his spelling was COTTEN.

TAKARA SMALL: And so Gerry blames the banks for his troubles. And Alexander says he seemed sincere.

ALEXANDRA POSADZKI: My impression from that exchange was that he was a genuinely nice guy. And I guess I got sort of duped a little bit because I walked away from it almost almost believing him, you know, that there was maybe nothing untoward happening here, that this was just kind of a run of the mill crypto problem. He sounded like he wanted to help.

TAKARA SMALL: Alexander reported on the court case, but it makes her a little uneasy.

ALEXANDRA POSADZKI: I think that they were using the asset freeze as the sort of sole explanation for why people couldn't get their crypto or their or their money out of the exchange and having a story show up in the Globe and Mail saying that CIBC, it frozen their money, kind of legitimised their world. Jerry's alibi on this, you know, he could point to this story in a mainstream media publication and say, well, it's the evil bank that won't let you have your money back. It's not us at Quadriga. And so I almost feel a little bit guilty for that because I don't like to think that perhaps my reporting on this legal battle between Quadriga and CIBC, which was all entirely true and accurate, but still inadvertently may have kind of reassured people that this exchange was a legitimate business and safe to transact with.

[Music]

ANDREW WAGNER: And so they had all this money tied up, I don't think they were able to process withdrawals, and so I think they started resorting to very shady methods of moving money due to their normal channels being closed on them.

TAKARA SMALL: Quadriga was instructing some of his customers to send their money to processers with bank accounts in foreign countries.

MICHAEL BIRKLAND: I got a text message from a family friend asking for clarification because they were trying to make a deposit into Quadriga and they were just told to send their dollars to a bank in Poland.

TAKARA SMALL: Michael Birkland had recommended Quadriga to a lot of family and friends.

MICHAEL BIRKLAND: I liked the fact that if something went wrong, I could just send a text message to Gerry.

TAKARA SMALL: A family friend was concerned about making a wire transfer to Poland. They wanted to know if this was legit or a scam. So Michael Birkland asked Gerry about it.

MICHAEL BIRKLAND: Gerry responded saying, yeah, it's fine, we are using a Polish account for that. It was a little bit strange, but it wasn't completely out of the realm of normalcy. And when I heard Gerry say, yeah, that's fine, your friend can feel safe giving his money to that Polish bank account. OK, well, he's the CEO. He's Gerry. He's been in my home. I know this guy. He he wouldn't lie to me

TAKARA SMALL: on bank accounts. Unusual delays getting money. People were now doing a double take. Looking more closely at Quadriga.

MICHAEL BIRKLAND: Now in the Bitcoin industry when an exchange experiences delays and withdrawals, that's usually the first warning sign of some bad news. Now, it's not always and sometimes delays happen and they're just delays.

TAKARA SMALL: But he points to a legendary story in the Bitcoin world, the tale of the collapse of Mt. Gox, a Japanese exchange that lost over four hundred and seventy million dollars U.S. worth of Bitcoin to a Russian hacker. Its CEO was found guilty of producing false records.

MICHAEL BIRKLAND: In the case of Mt. Gox, those delays were a result of empty costs, not having the money to send those customers requesting the withdrawals. So the delays were stall tactics, waiting for other people's deposits to come in so they could be forwarded to the withdrawals.

TAKARA SMALL: Quadriga customers were on high alert

ALEXANDRA POSADZKI: around that time. I was also hearing these sort of crazy rumours swirling around this company, just some really bizarre stars.

TAKARA SMALL: Rumours about Quadriga is co-founder Michael Patrón, previously only whispers in the Bitcoin community spread to read it.

ALEXANDRA POSADZKI: And so, according to these rumours, Michael Patroni had once lived in the US under a different name. That name was Omar Janani, where he had participated in basically an identity theft ring. And what he did was he ran a money laundering service for these identity thieves and changed his name not once but twice. First from Omar Janani to Omar Patrón and then from Omar Patrón to Michael Patron.

TAKARA SMALL: In January of 2018 a year before Jeri's reported death, someone on Reddit posts quote. Quadriga CX, run by fraudster Patrón, a.k.a. Omar Janani. It was a big, bold post accusing Michael of hiding his past and his real identity. Andrew recalls how the rumour started,

ANDREW WAGNER: someone he made an enemy of figured out that he had changed his name and become famous in the Bitcoin community and set upon himself to ruin Mike's reputation in the Bitcoin community by dredging up everything from his past. A lot of forum posts, a lot of screenshots.

TAKARA SMALL: And remember, Patrón said he left the company by then, a fact that was repeated by the company on Reddit.

MICHAEL BIRKLAND: We must have ruffled someone's feathers. This guy's posting hypothetical nonsense about someone with a different name of someone who left our company more than two years ago.

TAKARA SMALL: Michael denied all of it, it was a case of mistaken identity, he said, but Andrew believed what he was hearing and his relationship with Michael changed.

ANDREW WAGNER: Eventually, I stopped being friends with him just. Just because he wasn't being very honest. You know what I mean, like who he was, his past. What he's done, and that just didn't jive with me, you know, like if he had told me, Andrew, I did some terrible things in the past. Here they are X, Y, Z, I would have been like, well, OK, everyone has a past. But he didn't do that. He didn't tell me at all and I found that offensive, so I ended the friendship.

TAKARA SMALL: Michael Patron decided to do something about those posts.

ALEXANDRA POSADZKI: At one point he had hired this company called Reputation.ca, which is basically this company based in Toronto that will help you bury bad Google search results and promote more positive content.

TAKARA SMALL: The problem is that when you Googled his name, that Reddit post calling him a fraudster would pop up amongst the very first results he agreed to pay reputation gutsier 3500 dollars a month for a limited period of time to clean up his online profile. According to court documents, because that's where things landed. The company says it created 10 websites, which included positive content about Michael pushing the bad stuff further down the Google queue. But Michael wasn't satisfied, ensued.

ALEXANDRA POSADZKI: And then when we contacted them, they actually said that they failed to vet pattern properly when they took him on as a client.

TAKARA SMALL: Eventually, the claim was settled. Publicly, Michael has denied that he was either Omar Patrón or Omar Janani.

[Music]

AMY CASTOR: One of the things online is this rumour that you actually go buy a dinner went by a different name in your past. Do you have any reaction to that?

MICHAEL PATRON: You would have seen that online for many, many years. Unfortunately, there's not much you can do about Twitter over the Internet for most people, just Internet rumours. That, unfortunately, does happen in the cryptospace.

[Music]

MK: We've been listening to the original CBC podcast, A Death in Cryptoland. We'll pick up where we left off next week. Well, that's the programme for this Friday and this is my last day in the chair of The Current. I'll hand the guest hosting reigns to Robyn Bresnehan on Monday. Q is coming up next on Radio One. Tom Power is hosting his weekly music panel. I'm Mark Kelley. Thanks for listening and thanks to the terrific team at The Current.

Full Text Transcript for Friday July 16, 2021

Social Sharing

More from this episode