At the beginning of the year, I wrote about a really awful kidnapping incident that happened in France, where a gang of somewhere between 20 and 40 thugs burst into the country home of a crypto firm’s founder. Insult to injury, the fellow didn’t even work there anymore, but no matter. They hauled him and his wife away, cut off one of his fingers to send to a business associate (!) with a ransom demand, and waited for the money to come in. Luckily, a French tactical police unit figured out where they were and got them both out safely.
If only they were outliers in France. Apparently, crypto kidnappings are the in-thing.
French Crypto Chiefs Step Up Security After String of Violent Kidnappings
Big players in the crypto sector argue that new European cryptocurrency rules may be enabling recent abductions and are demanding changes and more security.
In fact, just two weeks ago, kidnappers were filmed trying to snatch the pregnant daughter of a crypto executive along with her two-year-old right off a Paris city street in broad daylight.
Kidnapping businessmen and moguls for ransom has always kind of struck me as a uniquely European or South American problem. It’s almost always some sort of organized crime or drug cartel doing it, and you rarely, if ever, hear of such things in the States – certainly never on the scale seen elsewhere.
I might be due for a reassessment, though, after what happened in New York City a week ago. Things could be changing.
In case you missed it when I posted it in our headlines, let me share what the New York Post had in bold, black print when this first broke.
It’s a pretty shocking headline for one of our American newspapers.
Crypto investor allegedly tortured captive Italian businessman with a chainsaw for weeks in luxe NYC pad in sadistic scheme to gain password
I mean, this isn’t something that happens every day here.
And when you read the story, it was as if The Silence of the Lambs and The Bonfire of the Vanities had collided and had some sort of demented hybrid spawn.
Filthy rich elites suffer a reversal of fortune, which threatens their lifestyle, instinctively react with kidnapping, and then metaphorically torture someone in the derelict basement well of an isolated cottage for weeks.
Only this was a $40,000-a-month crib in the middle of Manhattan.
A cryptocurrency investor from Kentucky is suspected of torturing an Italian businessman with a chainsaw in a sadistic, weeks-long extortion attempt to gain the password for his accounts at a ritzy Manhattan apartment – before the captive made a daring escape, police sources said.
John Woeltz, 37, was arrested after the bloodied and bruised businessman – a 28 year-old man – broke out of the SoHo house of horrors Friday morning, ran to a police officer and said he’d been held prisoner for more than two weeks, the sources said.
Cops rushed to the luxurious Prince Street pad – which Woeltz was allegedly renting for roughly $30,000 to $40,000 a month – and discovered multiple Polaroid photos showing the businessman being tied up with electrical wire and tortured, including one of him bound to a chair with a gun pointed at his head, according to the sources.
Since being taken captive, the businessman had been bound with an electric cord, Tased while his feet were put in water, pistol-whipped, forced to take cocaine and threatened to have his limbs cut off with an electric chainsaw, the sources said.
IT PUTS THE PASSWORDS IN THE BASKET
…The ordeal began May 6, when the businessman arrived in New York City from Italy and went to meet Woeltz, with whom he apparently had past business dealings, according to sources.
But when the man went to the posh pad, the crypto bigshot snatched his passport and tied him up, sources said.
The man suffered days of torture that were documented by Polaroids – which likely were intended to be used to extort money, either from the victim or his family back in Italy, according to sources.
Police found the photos scattered throughout the blood-soaked makeshift torture chamber, along with several implements of terror – broken glass, night vision goggles, a bulletproof vest and a gun – in plain sight, sources said.
The man had a wound on his arm that is believed to be a cut from the chainsaw, according to the sources.
Here’s the video of the moment as the poor guy runs up to an NYPD officer after escaping from the House of Horrors.
🤙🏽Facts Dude Drop: Crypto Trader Tortures Italian For Bitcoin In NYC Nightmare
John Woeltz, was busted for kidnapping a man for 17 days. The Italian tourist was beaten, shocked with wires, and pistol-whipped for his bitcoin password.
pic.twitter.com/eFb1iadniq— The Facts Dude (@The_Facts_Dude) May 27, 2025
Does this not have freakazoid written all over it? Who gets arrested in a pristine white bathrobe?
THIS IS SCARY!!!!🤯
A crypto investor in Manhattan kidnapped and tortured a 28-year-old Italian guy for weeks just to get his crypto passwords.
Stay safe, guys.
— Evan Luthra (@EvanLuthra) May 26, 2025
IT RUBS THE LOTION ON ITS SKIN ELSE IT GETS THE CHAINSAW AGAIN
It certainly has the crypto world buzzing and worried here. The thought has just suddenly occurred to some of them that perhaps showing off all your cool coinage and bling at every possible juncture is not the brightest thing to do.
Crypto kidnapping crimes are on the rise worldwide.
Don’t advertise your holdings on the internet.A crypto investor in Manhattan, New York, has been charged with kidnapping & torturing a 28-year-old man for weeks to extract his BTC wallet passwords. https://t.co/vXcqwXyABi
— ROGUΞ ☠️ MΞΔNS (@RogueMeans) May 26, 2025
Lo and behold, a second suspect turned himself in to police this past Tuesday.
A second suspect turned himself in Tuesday in what police say was the kidnapping and torture of a cryptocurrency investor in a house in SoHo.
William Duplessie turned himself in to the NYPD’s major case squad at the 13th Precinct with his attorneys at about 7:45 a.m., a police spokesperson said.
Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said in an appearance on FOX 5 Tuesday morning that Duplessie will face kidnapping and false imprisonment charges.
It’s starting to sound as if there were a few co-conspirators as opposed to just the bathrobe boy being frisked by the cops.
Speaking of cops, it’s a lucky thing the Italian ran up to a beat cop, who was there to protect and serve even tortured tourists.
As of this morning, it seems a couple of the detectives, one who is on Mayor Adams’ security detail, have some ‘splainin’ to do that might just be crypto-nite, news-wise.
At least one NYPD officer has been placed on modified duty as part of an internal investigation into the kidnapping and torture of a man in SoHo, the department confirmed Thursday.
A police spokesperson said “members of the service were modified” on Wednesday, but declined to elaborate, saying only that the matter “is under internal review.”
The Associated Press reported that one of the officers under investigation worked on Mayor Eric Adams’ security detail — a detail Adams did not dispute during a live television appearance Thursday night. City Hall did not immediately respond to a request seeking further comment.
Sounds sketchy, huh? That isn’t the half of it. I have to break out Billy Mayes again.
BUT, WAIT! THERE’S MORE!
A New York City Police detective assigned to Mayor Eric Adams’ security detail will be questioned in relation to a bizarre crypto currency kidnapping and torture plot after he allegedly delivered the victim to his tormentors, according to multiple law enforcement officials briefed on the case.
It is not clear if the detective had any knowledge or any role in the multiple assaults, officials said, adding that is a key question that investigators are trying to answer.
...Investigators learned that the detective, who picked up the victim on May 6 from John F. Kennedy International Airport, was working “off-duty employment” providing security for Woeltz, a Crypto entrepreneur, sources said.
The detective was contacted by NYPD’s Internal Affairs Bureau and has been placed on “modified assignment,” meaning his badge and guns have been taken and he is assigned to administrative duties as the investigation into the plot continues. A second detective, assigned to the Narcotics Division, was also placed on modified assignment as part of the same investigation, according to the officials. Investigators also do not know whether that detective had any awareness of the plot or involvement in it.
This is not going to help Mayor Adams’ reelection campaign.
Great googly moogly – the plot thickens, straight up to tapping the highest levels of city government and the NYPD.
Money does funny things to people of low character in high places.
