- Prosecutors have charged two crypto entrepreneurs with torturing a third for his Bitcoin.
- The alleged perpetrators have run crypto investment firms.
- One was indicted by a grand jury Thursday.
A five-story townhouse in Manhattan’s NoLita neighbourhood is luxe even by the area’s standards.
Its owner asked for $65,000-per-month rent as recently as March, according to property records reviewed by DL News.
City records suggest its residents liked to party: officials received three complaints for loud music and partying last month.
Police records, meanwhile, allege it was more recently used for something much darker — the latest episode in a crypto-fuelled kidnapping wave sweeping the globe.
For almost three weeks a pair of crypto entrepreneurs allegedly tortured a man there for his Bitcoin, according to police reports reviewed by DL News.
Grand jury indictment
John Woeltz, 37, and William Duplessie, 33, have been arrested and charged with kidnapping, assault, and weapons possession. They face decades in prison if convicted.
Woeltz was indicted Thursday by a grand jury. His indictment will remain sealed until his arraignment in New York State Supreme Court — the state’s lowest court — on June 11, according to a spokesperson from the Manhattan district attorney’s office.
Duplessie is scheduled to appear in court Friday morning.
In the latest twist, two New York police officers, including one serving on Mayor Eric Adams’ security detail, have been placed on modified duty, according to news reports.
Roberto Cordero, the officer on the mayor’s security detail, allegedly brought the victim from the airport to the NoLita townhouse. Both officers are under investigation.
Crime wave
A spate of crypto kidnappings in France have demonstrated that criminals see crypto entrepreneurs and their digital assets as relatively easy targets.
In January, the abduction of David Balland, a co-founder of the cryptocurrency wallet provider Ledger, shocked the industry when the kidnappers chopped one of his fingers.
This week, Europol, the European Union’s law enforcement cooperation group, busted an organised crime group allegedly tied to the Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel that was using cryptocurrencies to facilitate drug trafficking.
Woeltz and Duplessie are entirely different type of criminal suspect — they’re high-rolling businessmen with, seemingly, little to gain and a lot to lose by inflicting a litany of horrors on an industry peer.
The allegations
According to police reports, on May 6 the two men lured their victim to a property in lower Manhattan, where they bound him and tortured him for his “Bitcoin password.”
The alleged torment included beatings, shocking with electrical wires, pointing a gun at the victim’s head, and dangling him from a flight of stairs inside the building. The two men told their victim they would kill him and his family if he didn’t hand over access to his Bitcoin, according to police reports.
Surveillance video broadcast by NBC New York shows the victim barefoot, bruised, clad in black shorts and a black shirt, approaching an officer at a nearby intersection and asking for help.
That man is 27-year-old Italian crypto entrepreneur Michael Valentino Teofrasto Carturan, according to news reports.
An internal police report obtained by The New York Times states Caturan and Woeltz “had ties to a crypto hedge fund in New York” and “fell out over money.” Caturan returned to Italy this year, but Woeltz convinced him to return to New York, according to the report.
When Caturan arrived at the building at 38 Prince Street, his captors took his passport and electronic devices, according to police reports.
Kentucky native
A Kentucky native, Woeltz told a local newspaper he attended the University of Kentucky before moving to Silicon Valley to pursue a career in tech.
Woeltz was part of a team that competed in the ETHSan Francisco hackathon in 2018, creating a robot that would submit absentee ballots on behalf of university students living outside their home districts.
He eventually came home, and founded Silicon River Capital and served on a working group tasked with evaluating the “feasibility” of using blockchain technology to manage Kentucky’s water and power infrastructure.
The New York Post reported Woeltz has a net worth over $100 million. The tabloid interviewed an unnamed family member, who said Woeltz was the real victim in this case, a “kind, caring, loving person” who was “completely controlled by other people.”
Swiss fund
Duplessie was the CEO and co-founder of Pangea Blockchain Fund, an investment firm based in Lugano, Switzerland, according to a since-deleted page on the company’s website.
“Pangea’s experience with Web3.0 dates back to 2012, CEO William Duplessie learned about Bitcoin whilst at university, participating as an early miner in several protocols,” another deleted webpage reads.
Duplessie had worked at DNA Advisors, a Los Angeles-based venture capital firm. Stephen Duplessie, who appears to be related to William, ran crypto marketing firm Theorem Labs.
They co-founded Pangea in 2018 and raised $19 million, a figure that includes $2 million from Roger Ver, the Bitcoin evangelist who became famed in crypto circles for renouncing his US citizenship and refusing to pay taxes.
Despite boasting annualized returns of 73% since its founding, Pangea has been liquidating its funds since early 2024 under the oversight of Stephen Duplessie, according to its bare bones website.
Its investments include Axie Infinity, the blockchain gaming platform. Proof of Impact, an ESG technology firm, and StrongBlock, a blockchain venture.
The founders of several Pangea portfolio companies did not return DL News’ requests for comment.
Despite his business credentials, news reports suggest Duplessie has lived like an archetypical crypto bro, leasing a Lamborghini and spending tens of thousands of dollars per night for booze at exclusive Manhattan night clubs.
He has also been dogged by several civil and criminal allegations, according to reports, including failure to pay the almost $4,000-per-month he owed for the Lamborghini and assaulting his fiancee.
Aleks Gilbert is DL News’ New York-based DeFi correspondent. You can reach him at aleks@dlnews.com.
