Crypto Investor Charged With Kidnapping and Torturing Victim Over Bitcoin

A U.S. cryptocurrency investor is dealing with felony costs after allegedly kidnapping and torturing a person in Manhattan for weeks in an try to steal his bitcoin

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John Woeltz, 37, was arraigned on Saturday on a number of costs, together with kidnapping, assault, and unlawful gun possession, after he held a 28-year-old Italian man captive in a luxurious townhouse, authorities say.

The Italian man traveled to New York earlier this month and was lured to a five-story rental within the NoLiTa neighborhood, the place prosecutors say Woeltz and an unidentified confederate started abusing him to get his crypto pockets credentials.

The townhouse, rented for at the very least $30,000 a month, grew to become the positioning of a weeks-long ordeal. Prosecutors say the sufferer was overwhelmed, shocked with electrical wires, and threatened at gunpoint.

At one level, he was dangled over a staircase railing and informed he could be killed if he didn’t give in. He was additionally warned his household could be harmed, the New York Times stories.

The sufferer escaped Friday morning, flagging down a site visitors officer after fleeing the home. Police arrested Woeltz on the scene and found Polaroid pictures exhibiting the abuse, together with weapons and different torture gear.

A second individual, Beatrice Folchi, was additionally arrested, whereas a 3rd suspect stays at massive.

This assault is a part of a troubling sample: the cryptocurrency business has seen dozens of bodily assaults this 12 months alone. In one latest case, the daughter and grandson of Pierre Noizat, CEO of crypto platform Paymium, have been focused in an tried kidnapping caught on video and posted on-line.

That try failed, however earlier in the identical metropolis, a crypto millionaire’s father was kidnapped and had a finger severed earlier than being rescued.

In one more incident, David Balland, co-founder of {hardware} pockets maker Ledger, and his spouse have been kidnapped from their house. They have been later rescued by authorities, and a paid ransom was seized.