NEW YORK (AP) — Authorities arrested William Duplessie, a 32-year-old cryptocurrency investor, on charges including kidnapping, assault, unlawful imprisonment, and criminal possession of a weapon. His surrender to the police occurred on Tuesday, just days after a horrific kidnapping incident unfolded in Manhattan.
The ordeal began when a 28-year-old Italian national was reportedly lured to an upscale townhouse in the Soho neighborhood on May 6 by Duplessie and another crypto investor, John Woeltz, 37, who was taken into custody just four days prior. The victim, who managed to escape, described a nightmarish experience where he was tortured for almost three weeks.
During his captivity, the victim recounted being bound, beaten, and tortured in various harrowing ways. He stated that he suffered injuries ranging from being shocked with electrical wires to being pistol-whipped and cut with a saw. At one point, he was dangled from the top of a flight of stairs, enduring both physical and psychological torment as his captors demanded access to his Bitcoin account.
The victim’s escape on Friday morning marked a dramatic turn in what had become a very serious situation. Believing his life was in imminent danger, he ultimately agreed to provide the captors with access to his Bitcoin password. However, as his captors went to retrieve his computer, he seized the opportunity to flee, running out of the townhouse barefoot and bloodied to flag down a traffic agent.
A subsequent search of the townhouse uncovered a disturbing array of evidence that corroborated the victim’s claims. Authorities discovered cocaine, a saw, body armor, night vision goggles, ammunition, and even polaroid photos depicting the victim in vulnerability, such as with a gun to his head.
The victim was hospitalized with notable injuries consistent with being restrained and further wounds to his face and body. This extreme incident is part of a disturbing trend, as violence against wealthy cryptocurrency holders has escalated recently, coinciding with a surge in crypto theft.
Both Duplessie and Woeltz are entrepreneurs connected to the cryptocurrency sector. Duplessie is reported as the co-founder of the Pangea Blockchain Fund, while Woeltz has described himself as a blockchain investor with roots in Silicon Valley before transitioning to the cryptocurrency mining market in Kentucky. Their alleged crime underscores a growing wave of violence in the cryptocurrency world, where high-stakes heists and kidnappings have become alarmingly common.
Earlier incidents of violence within the crypto community include a Paris case where the father of a crypto entrepreneur was rescued from attackers who had cut off one of his fingers and an attempted kidnapping of a crypto entrepreneur’s daughter in broad daylight. In a similar plot, a couple from Danbury, Connecticut, was violently abducted in connection to a ransom demand for their son, involved in a $240 million crypto heist.
A recent FBI report highlighted the dangers, revealing that internet crimes were responsible for $16.6 billion in reported losses in 2024, a significant increase compared to the previous year. Cryptocurrency theft accounted for an alarming $6.5 billion of those losses, indicating a critical need for heightened awareness and security in the digital currency landscape.
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