Police have apprehended two crypto investors who were allegedly involved in the kidnapping and torturing of an Italian man in a Manhattan townhouse. The victim claimed his captors forced him to reveal his Bitcoin account password.
According to a recent report by AP News, 32-year-old William Duplessie has surrendered to the police over the alleged kidnapping of a man who claimed he was tortured for weeks in a posh New York townhouse by crypto investors seeking to extort his Bitcoin (BTC) funds.
Duplessie is the second alleged culprit to be apprehended by the police. He faces charges of kidnapping, assault, unlawful imprisonment and criminal possession of a weapon. His accomplice, fellow crypto investor John Woeltz, was taken into custody four days earlier after the victim managed to escape their grasp.
Duplessie is known online as the co-founder and head of sourcing at Pangea Blockchain Fund and an avid investor in blockchain firms. While Woeltz has described himself as a blockchain investor who spent time in Silicon Valley before becoming involved in the crypto mining sector in Kentucky.
On May 23, a 28-year-old Italian man found by a traffic agent at the side of the road. Bloodied and barefoot, the victim claimed to have been beaten, drugged, shocked with electricity and threatened with death for nearly three weeks in an eight-bedroom townhouse located in Soho, Manhattan.
According to the police, the victim was lured to the townhouse by Duplessie and Woeltz on May 6. The two crypto investors allegedly attempted to extort the man to give up his Bitcoin account password.
The man reportedly told police that over the course of 17 days, he was bound by his wrists, tortured, shocked, forced to smoke a crack pipe and had a gun held to his head. At one point, he said he was even dangled from the top of the stairs.
Believing he would be killed soon if he did not comply to their demands, the victim agreed on Friday morning to reveal his Bitcoin account password to the captors. When the two men went to get the victim’s computer, the victim managed to escape from the home.
He is currently hospitalized for his injuries that appeared consistent with the evidence authorities found in the Manhattan townhouse.
In the past few weeks, there have been a series of violent crimes involving crypto investors and industry leaders. Most recently, on May 27, the French police detained more than 12 suspects for their alleged involvement in two Paris kidnapping attempts involving a crypto entrepreneur and a crypto exchange CEO.
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