The "Crypto King of Kentucky" Allegedly Kidnapped and Tortured a Man For Weeks in NYC Over His Bitcoin Stash

Yahoo

28-05-2025

In Manhattan's tony Nolita neighborhood, the so-called "Crypto King of Kentucky" allegedly held an Italian man hostage and tortured him for weeks when trying to gain access to his Bitcoin wallet.
As NBC New York reports, the purported "king," whose real name is John Woelz, was arrested and arraigned after the Italian tourist he allegedly kidnapped escaped on foot — literally speaking, as he was filmed running barefoot — to find help.
That tourist, as the New York Times reports, was identified as a millionaire named Michael Valentino Teofrasto Carturan who had been in a tumultuous business partnership with Woelz and a third man, William Duplessie.
Before things went sour, the relationship between the three men was described by insiders to NBC NY as"frat guys gone wild," with Woeltz and Duplessie "roughing up" Carturan sometimes, but never to this extent.
When their partnership began to deteriorate, Carturan was said to have gone home to Italy, only to be persuaded back to New York where the "Crypto King" and Duplessie allegedly held him for three weeks in a four-story, 17-room luxury townhouse that rents for $75,000 per month (though Woeltz apparently got a deal and paid about $30,000, per NBC New York.)
During their not-so-pleasant stay in Nolita, one or both of the accused conspirators tortured the Italian to try to get the password to Carturan's Bitcoin wallet, which was said to contain millions of dollars worth of crypto. It remains unclear whether they gained access to it before the man escaped, bloodied and barefoot, into the New York streets.
According to a police report viewed by the NYT, Carturan's torture was absolutely brutal.
Per his own attestation, the man was bound with electrical wires, pistol-whipped, urinated upon, forced to smoke crack cocaine, and electrocuted with a stungun while his feet were submerged in water. The kidnappers also allegedly threatened to kill Carturan's family, per prosecutor statements viewed by the newspaper, and other reports indicate that he claimed to have been dangled from a fifth floor — which would likely have taken place elsewhere, because the Prince Street townhouse only has four stories — and threatened with a chainsaw as well.
The fuzziness of those details already appears to be a point of contention. During an arraignment hearing for Duplessie, the second of the alleged co-conspirators, his attorney Sanford Talkin suggested that there's more to the case than meets the eye.
"The facts here are hotly disputed," Talkin argued, per the NYT. "[Duplessie's] involvement is hotly disputed."
Though the specifics of the alleged torture have not been tamped down in the aftermath of Carturan's shocking escape, there's plenty of physical evidence lending veracity to his account. When investigators looked through the house of horrors on Prince Street, they found, according to the NYT, photos of the Italian's torture, as well as multiple firearms, a ballistic vest, chicken wire, and blood.
While we don't know much about either alleged kidnappers' backgrounds beyond their involvement in crypto investing and their late-night escapades, per TMZ, at an exclusive nightclub called The Box, they appear to have given neighbors the creeps.
"I knew there was something weird going on, I just assumed they were shooting porn or something," a nearby jewelry vendor, who asked not to be named, told the New York Post of the "weird crypto guys" who'd taken up the townhouse. "I couldn't have guessed all this."
This kind of "wrench attack," as crypto kidnappings, tortures, are robberies are now called, are unfortunately becoming more common as traders move to physical storage of their holdings to avoid hacks. This one, it seems, just happened to explode in full view of a bustling lower Manhattan neighborhood.
More on crypto crazies: Crypto Tycoon's Daughter Narrowly Escapes Kidnappers in Paris