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On March 16, an Ontario court released documents announcing that Canadian 'Crypto King' Aiden Pleterski was allegedly kidnapped and tortured in December 2022.
According to CBC, Aiden Pleterski was accused of scamming investors for approximately $40 million. Some of the disgruntled investors allegedly kidnapped the 23-year-old, tortured him, and demanded a $3 million ransom for his safe return.
As per Decrypt, in August 2022, Aiden Pleterski officially filed for bankruptcy. Around that time, he reportedly began a fraudulent scheme, promising investors that he would use their money to invest in cryptocurrency and foreign exchange positions.
However, he allegedly only invested $670,000 of the $41.5 million. He was accused of using almost $16 million to purchase luxury goods, such as sports cars.
According to Pleterski's father, the kidnappers grabbed him in December, and drove him around South Ontario for three days. They reportedly beat him up, before allowing him to make calls to certain people in order to collect the ransom money. The case is currently under investigation.
Aiden Pleterski is a self-proclaimed crypto-investor
23-year-old Aiden Pleterski is an Ontario-based social media influencer and a self-proclaimed crypto-investor.
According to investors who claim to have been defrauded by Pleterski, the so-called 'crypto-king' used his social media to make himself seem richer and more educated than he is. This was supposedly part of his ploy to collect fraudulent investments.
Pleterski claimed that he owned AP Private Equity Limited, the firm which was implicated in his foreign investment scheme. He also claimed to operate several other investment firms, though officials discovered that his accounts of his wealth were highly exaggerated.
Aiden Pleterski told authorities that he began facing problems in November 2021, when he lost his investments during a downturn in the crypto market. He claimed that afterwards, he attempted to regain the money in order to pay off other investors.
He said that despite this, his losses only mounted over time. In the documents filed on March 14, 2023, Pleterski's father claimed that a few of his son's investors eventually kidnapped him in December 2022.
Dragan Pleterski said:
“He was taken. They basically held him for approximately three days, drove him around different, various parts of southern Ontario, beat him, tortured him, allowed him to make specific phone calls to specific people only. I was not one of those people that he was allowed to contact.”
He added that the perpetrators, whose identities remain undisclosed, had said that they would be willing to harm Aiden Pleterski again in the future.
Dragan Pleterski said:
“He was released with the threat that he needed to come up with some money fast, and if he had went to the police, that there would be a lot more trouble."
The case currently remains under investigation by Ontario authorities.
