Earlier this year, high-end Manhattan nightclubs buzzed with whispers of two newcomers, William Duplessie and John Woeltz, who were quickly dubbed ‘whales’ within the nightlife scene.
These men made conspicuous nightly appearances at the likes of Jean’s, Paul’s Casablanca, and the Box without a reservation, often dropping six figures in a single night.
Their extravagant spending forced clubs to scramble for more expensive bottles of champagne to cater to them.
Accompanied by a security team that sometimes numbered as many as ten, they stood out in Manhattan’s nightlife, but no one knew their true identities.
With their camouflaged outfits and gun holsters, Duplessie and Woeltz initially bore a resemblance more fitting of tourists than of the elite often seen frequenting these clubs.
Yet their presence cast an electric excitement among club promoters, who recognized the unpredictability these men brought to the nightlife scene.
When the wild parties they hosted back home erupted, it became worrying to those in their orbit.
Situated in a five-story townhouse on Prince Street, they transformed the space into an after-hours nightclub, recruiting young employees from the local Brandy Melville store to party with them.
While boasting connections to intelligence agencies and displaying an array of weaponry, the atmosphere was thrilling yet unsettling.
It was a lifestyle that would soon spiral into darkness when a 28-year-old man, Michael Carturan, stumbled out of the townhouse one morning, bloodied and barefoot, seeking help from a nearby traffic cop.
He claimed to have been held captive and tortured by Duplessie and Woeltz for the passwords to his cryptocurrency accounts.
His story marked the first known crypto kidnapping in New York, a troubling sign in an era where digital wealth had started attracting increasingly dangerous criminals.
As the crypto market surged, so too did the allure of targeting its wealthy investors.
The nature of holding crypto was precarious, as fortunes can vanish instantly with just the right access to wallets or passwords.
The situation caught many in the crypto world off guard, especially as stories of kidnappings and torture became more commonplace across the globe.
Duplessie’s background indicated a trajectory toward trouble from an early age.
Raised in privilege next to hedge-fund billionaire Ray Dalio in Greenwich, his teenage years were marred by misdeeds, including a violent encounter that forced his father to send him to work in a bicycle factory in China.
With every attempt to provide him opportunities, trouble seemed to follow him relentlessly, pushing him toward increasingly risky behavior.
His tenure at Bard College was marked less by academics and more by his burgeoning party lifestyle and music aspirations, underscoring a disinterest in conventional paths.
After a stint at Tulane, where his gun collection expanded, and rumors of misdeeds proliferated, his life only grew bolder and more reckless.
His foray into crypto in 2017 became a double-edged sword.
The initial successes gave way to a financially desperate situation as he spiraled into debt, desperately seeking to reclaim his lost fortune.
Attempts to establish credibility in the crypto world led him and his father on an international journey to Switzerland, where they attempted to reinvent themselves as credible investors.
With a shaky reputation trailing them, a momentary windfall led to an extravagant lifestyle that became increasingly unsustainable when the market began to falter.
In 2021, as funds began to dwindle, they retreated from Switzerland, struggling to maintain their illusion of legitimacy while investors clamored for accountability.
Back in the U.S., Duplessie’s subsequent lifestyle in Miami embodied the chaos of his life — speeding in luxury cars, failing to pay rent, and allegations of drug use compounded into further legal strife.
Duplessie’s return to Kentucky marked a drastic shift as he partnered with the mild-mannered John Woeltz.
Unlike Duplessie, Woeltz found initial success as a dedicated crypto miner and cybersecurity enthusiast, amassing a fortune before embarking on a perilous journey of his own.
Their partnership forged a relationship that took a turn for the bizarre as they developed joint projects, reveling in paranoia and rugged masculinity.
The manifestation of their ambitions included an alarming plan that would soon come with violent repercussions.
Over the winter, their ideas darkened into a manifesto that laid out their intention to forcibly steal cryptocurrency from their perceived enemies.
Their examination of potential targets included Carturan, who unwittingly found himself embroiled in their twisted aspirations.
As Spring approached, dynamics within their group steadily deteriorated, culminating in Carturan’s spine-chilling treatment by the two men, who coerced him into revealing sensitive financial information.
Under increasing pressure, they subjected him to forced hazing rituals that blurred the lines between absurdity and violence, cultivating an atmosphere that was as threatening as it was surreal.
On Woeltz’s birthday, an explosive confrontation led Carturan to make a desperate escape after days of torment and abuse.
His last-minute flight situates the story at an intersection of privilege, ambition, and the dangerous allure of the digital gold rush.
Upon fleeing, he reported to law enforcement, unveiling a series of harrowing allegations that would spark an extensive investigation into their heinous activities.
Meanwhile, the authorities faced the tall order of sorting through the layers of the duplicitous lifestyle that Duplessie and Woeltz had established, filled with violence and a thirst for dominance.
As investigations unfold, the shocking reality of what transpired in that McMansion-like home raises questions that extend beyond mere pranks to issues of power, wealth, and the limits of loyalty in the cryptocurrency frontier.
The criminal proceedings surrounding Duplessie and Woeltz reflect the shifting landscape of crime blueprints that foreground their alleged acts of terror amidst the glamour of illegal cryptocurrency entanglements.
For those in the crypto community, the event serves as a cautionary tale, prompting newfound diligence in approaching wealth management and personal safety in an environment characterized by increasing unpredictability.
Going forward, the outcomes of the trials will likely carry implications reaching far beyond the immediate circumstances, reshaping perspectives regarding the safety of digital currencies in a world where trust has proven to be fragile at best.
image source from：nymag
