New York – The latest crime thriller gripping New York is the alleged kidnapping of a wealthy Italian man whose captors attempted to torture the crypto millionaire into giving up his bitcoin password.
It began amid the backdrop of wild parties, immortalized in pop culture through films like “The Wolf of Wall Street,” in a posh Manhattan nightclub where the nouveau riche and flashy Wall Street bros congregate.
It ended on the morning of May 23, when a man ran to a police officer near Mulberry and Prince streets in the Soho district of Manhattan.
The barefoot man claimed he had just escaped a luxurious apartment where he was held captive for 17 days after entering the United States.
Police arrived at the scene and arrested John Woeltz, 37, dubbed “the crypto king of Kentucky” by tabloids, who is facing charges of kidnapping, criminal possession of weapons, assault and unlawful imprisonment.
Woeltz’s 24-year-old assistant was also detained but does not face the same charges.
A second man, William Duplessie, 33, who is the founder of the startup Pangea Blockchain International, turned himself in on Tuesday and was charged similarly to Woeltz.
Duplessie, who originally hails from Miami, appeared in court Friday wearing a jail uniform.
According to details reported by local media, the presumed victim is Italian cryptocurrency entrepreneur Michael Valentino Teofrasto Carturan, who visited John Woeltz’s rented home – which goes for $30,000 a month – upon arriving from Italy on May 6.
Once there, Woeltz and Duplessie confiscated his electronic devices and passport, and demanded the access code to his bitcoin assets, police said.
After his refusal, the two men allegedly tortured Carturan, striking him with a rifle, pointing the weapon in his face and taking him to the building’s fifth floor, where they threatened to throw him out the window, local media reported.
“He’s a 37-year-old man with no prior criminal record. He’s a college graduate with a degree in philosophy. He has been very successful in the technology world,” Woeltz’s lawyer Wayne Ervin Gosnell said during a court hearing Thursday.
The defense requested Woeltz’s conditional release in the state of New York in exchange for a $2 million bond.
