A person suspected of serving to kidnap and torture an Italian cryptocurrency investor in a Manhattan townhouse has surrendered to New York Metropolis police.
William Duplessie turned himself in Tuesday after what officers described as days of negotiations with authorities, the New York Occasions reviews.
He’s the third suspect in an alleged plot to extract the keys to a bitcoin pockets belonging to Michael Valentino Teofrasto Carturan, a crypto fund affiliate who mentioned he was held captive and abused for almost three weeks.
The ordeal started on Might 6, when Carturan arrived at a 17-room townhouse on Prince Road in Manhattan’s NoLiTa neighborhood. He was set to reconnect with former fund accomplice John Woeltz, who, together with one other affiliate Beatrice Folchi, allegedly ambushed him.
Police say the group tried to drive Carturan to give up entry to his crypto holdings, reportedly price thousands and thousands, by bodily threats and psychological abuse.
In keeping with regulation enforcement, Carturan was assaulted, suspended from the highest ground of the five-story constructing, and held at gunpoint. He managed to flee and alert authorities almost three weeks later.
The New York Metropolis Police Division case has drawn consideration for its brutality and connection to a rising pattern of bodily assaults on crypto customers.
In France, the daughter and grandson of Paymium CEO Pierre Noizat had been lately focused in a failed kidnapping try captured on video. Earlier in the identical metropolis, a crypto millionaire’s father was kidnapped and had a finger severed earlier than being rescued.
One other incident noticed David Balland, co-founder of {hardware} pockets maker Ledger, and his spouse kidnapped from their house. Authorities later rescued the couple and seized the ransom cost.
Whereas Folchi has since been launched and her prosecution deferred, Woeltz is scheduled to seem in court docket on Wednesday. Each Woeltz and Duplessie face kidnapping, assault and unlawful gun possession expenses.
An legal professional representing Woeltz did not instantly reply to a request for remark.
