NYC crypto trader accused of Italian man's kidnap, torture threatened to kill his family to get Bitcoin password: prosecutors
NEW YORK — The 37-year-old Crypto trader accused of kidnapping a 28-year-old Italian man inside a luxurious SoHo apartment repeatedly shocked his victim with electric wires, held him upside down from the top of a staircase, cut his leg with a saw and threatened to kill the victim's family — all to get the password to the man's Bitcoin account, prosecutors said Saturday.
Manhattan Criminal Court Judge Eric Schumacher ordered John Woeltz held without bail on assault and kidnapping charges as police continued to search for his accomplice. He also issued a restraining order against Woeltz, so if he does get out of jail, he can't go anywhere near his victim.
A second alleged accomplice, a 24-year-old woman, was arrested late Friday but prosecutors declined to bring charges. Detectives on Saturday were still going through the Soho home, bringing out large paper evidence bags.
Prosecutors said the victim arrived in the U.S. on May 6 and visited Woeltz. The two men share interests in Bitcoin and cryptocurrency, cops said.
The extortion plot was uncovered after Woeltz's victim managed to escape his swanky Prince and Mulberry Sts. home in SoHo Friday morning and wave down a New York Police Department traffic enforcement agent, who called police.
Responding officers found Woeltz in the $30,000-a-month, eight-bedroom apartment swaddled in a plush white bathrobe.
'The guy comes out in a white bathrobe, barefoot, hands cuffed behind his back, got into a police car,' Ciaran Tully, 64, a vendor who sells photographs on Prince St., told The New York Daily News Friday. 'He didn't look concerned. He didn't look worried or anything like that.'
Trading in his robe for a white T-shirt, black pants and black and white-striped Adidas slides, Woeltz said nothing as Assistant District Attorney Michael Mattson laid out the case against him.
'Upon arriving at the home, (Woeltz and his accomplice) took all of the victim's electronics and his passport, rendering the victim unable to call for help,' Mattson said.
The two bound their victim's wrists and over the next three weeks subjected him to 'beatings including but not limited to the use of electric wires to shock him, using a firearm to hit him on the head, and pointing the firearm at his head on several occasions,' Mattson explained. '(They) used a saw to cut his leg, urinated on the victim, forced him to smoke crack cocaine by holding him down and forcing it into his mouth.'
The duo also 'tied an airtag around his neck with a chain or wire,' Mattson said. 'They (said they) would kill his family and they would find the victim if he left.'
After apprehending Woeltz, police found disturbing Polaroid photos of him and his accomplice torturing their victim and holding a gun to his head.
Sometime during the victim's capture, Woeltz and his accomplice managed to get printed T-shirts of the victim smoking crack. The shirts were found in the home, along with body armor, night vision goggles, ammunition and ballistic helmets, officials said.
The crypto trader refused to talk to police after he was arrested.
'He lawyered up immediately,' a police source said.
On Friday morning, Woeltz 'carried the victim to the top flight of stairs in the townhouse and hung the victim over the ledge as the defendant threatened to kill the victim if the victim would not provide the defendant with the victim's bitcoin password,' Mattson said.
After being pistol-whipped once again, the victim finally consented, but said he needed a laptop, the prosecutor said.
'When the defendant left the victim to retrieve the victim's laptop, the victim was able to escape down the stairs,' Mattson said. 'The victim was bloodied and had no shoes on.'
He was taken to Bellevue Hospital, where he was treated and released.
When requesting he be held without bail, prosecutors said Woeltz had the means to escape the country.
'(He) has a private jet and a helicopter,' Mattson said.
Woeltz is facing 15 years to life if convicted. His attorney Wayne Gosnell declined to comment to reporters after the brief arraignment proceeding.
Woeltz has been featured as a speaker at several cryptocurrency conferences and has 'nearly a decade of experience with technology startups in Silicon Valley,' according to online profiles.
Woeltz's mother Joan Woeltz said her son was an early believer of cryptocurrency and 'had been mining Bitcoin from the age of 12.'
During his travels in the crypto world, he had been taken in and corrupted by another cryptocurrency trader who systematically isolated him from his family and may have been the mastermind of this scheme, the mother claimed.
'We've been concerned about this person entering his life and kind of controlling it,' she said in an exclusive interview with the Daily News. 'My family and I have been concerned for some time for John's well being and what influence he was under with these people.
'We could never speak to John anymore without them being there,' Joan said, adding that the other trader and his cohorts had been influencing her son since December 2023. 'It was very sudden. Suddenly this person entered John's life, and we were suddenly isolated from John.'
Neighbors said the SoHo townhouse was vacant as of December. No one had any idea someone was being held captive and tortured inside.
'I saw the police,' neighbor Luigi, 37, told the Daily News. 'It was a surprise.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
23 minutes ago
- Yahoo
US-backed Israeli company's spyware used to target European journalists, Citizen Lab finds
ROME (AP) — Spyware from a U.S.-backed Israeli company was used to target the phones of at least three prominent journalists in Europe, two of whom are editors at an investigative news site in Italy, according to digital researchers at Citizen Lab, citing new forensic evidence of the attacks. The findings come amid a growing questions about what role the government of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni may have played in spying on journalists and civil society activists critical of her leadership, and raised new concerns about the potential for abuse of commercial spyware, even in democratic countries. 'Any attempts to illegally access data of citizens, including journalists and political opponents, is unacceptable, if confirmed,' the European Commission said in a statement Wednesday in response to questions from members of parliament. 'The Commission will use all the tools at its disposal to ensure the effective application of EU law.' Meloni's office declined to comment Thursday, but a prominent member of her Cabinet has said that Italy 'rigorously respected' the law and that the government hadn't illegally spied on journalists. Mercenary spyware industry The company behind the hacks, Paragon Solutions, has sought to position itself as a virtuous player in the mercenary spyware industry and won U.S. government contracts, The Associated Press found. Backed by former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, Paragon was reportedly acquired by AE Industrial Partners, a private investment firm based in Florida, in a December deal worth at least $500 million, pending regulatory approvals. AE Industrial Partners didn't directly respond to requests for comment on the deal. Paragon's spyware, Graphite, was used to target around 90 WhatsApp users from more than two dozen countries, primarily in Europe, Meta said in January. Since then, there's been a scramble to figure out who was hacked and who was responsible. 'We've seen first-hand how commercial spyware can be weaponized to target journalists and civil society, and these companies must be held accountable,' a spokesperson for WhatsApp told AP in an email. 'WhatsApp will continue to protect peoples' ability to communicate privately.' Meta said the vulnerability has been patched and they have not detected subsequent attacks. Meta also sent a cease-and-desist letter to Paragon. Last month, a California court awarded Meta $168 million in damages from Israel's NSO Group, whose spyware was used to hack 1,400 WhatsApp accounts, including of journalists, activists and government officials. Journalists targeted The Citizen Lab's findings, released today, show that the use of spyware against journalists has continued, despite the backlash against NSO Group, and establish for the first time that Paragon was able to successfully infect Apple devices. Ciro Pellegrino, who heads the Naples newsroom of an investigative news outlet called received a notice on April 29 that his iPhone had been targeted. Last year, Fanpage secretly infiltrated the youth wing of Meloni's Brothers of Italy party and filmed some of them making fascist and racist remarks. Pellegrino's colleague, Fanpage editor-in-chief Francesco Cancellato, also received a notice from Meta that his Android device had been targeted by Paragon spyware, though forensic evidence that his phone was actually infected with Graphite hasn't yet surfaced, according to Citizen Lab. The Citizen Lab's report today also revealed a third case, of a 'prominent European journalist,' who asked to remain anonymous, but is connected to the Italian cluster by forensic evidence unearthed by researchers at the laboratory, which is run out of the Munk School at the University of Toronto. The Citizen Lab, which has analyzed all the devices, said the attack came via iMessage, and that Apple has patched the vulnerability. Apple did not respond immediately to requests for comment. 'Paragon is now mired in exactly the kind of abuse scandal that NSO Group is notorious for,' said John Scott-Railton, a senior researcher at the Citizen Lab. 'This shows the industry and its way of doing business is the problem. It's not just a few bad apples.' Stealthy spyware Paragon's spyware is especially stealthy because it can compromise a device without any action from the user. Similar to the NSO Group's notorious Pegasus spyware, which has been blacklisted by the U.S. government, Graphite allows the operator to covertly access applications, including encrypted messengers like Signal and WhatsApp. 'There's no link to click, attachment to download, file to open or mistake to make,' Scott-Railton said. 'One moment the phone is yours, and the next minute its data is streaming to an attacker.' Parliamentary oversight COPASIR, the parliamentary committee overseeing the Italian secret services, took the rare step last week of making public the results of its investigation into the government's use of Paragon. The COPASIR report said that Italian intelligence services hadn't spied on Cancellato, the editor of Fanpage. The report did confirm the surveillance, with tools including Graphite, of civil society activists, but said they had been targeted legally and with government authorization — not as activists but over their work related to irregular immigration and national security. Giovanni Donzelli, vice president of COPASIR and a prominent member of Meloni's Brothers of Italy party, declined further comment Thursday, saying the parliamentary report was 'more relevant than an analysis done by a privately funded Canadian laboratory.' Citizen Lab says it's 'rigorously independent,' and doesn't accept research funding from governments or companies. Italy and Paragon both say they've terminated their relationship, but offer starkly different versions of the breakup. Paragon referred questions to a statement it gave to Israeli newspaper Haaretz, in which the company said that it stopped providing spyware to Italy after the government declined its offer to help investigate Cancellato's case. Italian authorities, however, said they had rejected Paragon's offer over national security concerns and ended the relationship following media outcry. U.S. contracts Paragon has been keen to deflect reputational damage that could, in theory, impact its contracts with the U.S. government. A 2023 executive order, which so far hasn't been overturned by U.S. President Donald Trump, prohibits federal government departments and agencies from acquiring commercial spyware that has been misused by foreign governments, including to limit freedom of expression and political dissent. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security awarded Paragon a one-year, $2 million contract last September for operations and support of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, public records show. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has also reportedly used the spyware. In December 2022, Adam Schiff, the California Democrat who at the time chaired the House Intelligence Committee, wrote to the administrator of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration questioning whether the DEA's use of Graphite spyware undermined efforts to deter the 'broad proliferation of powerful surveillance capabilities to autocratic regimes and others who may misuse them.' ___ Byron Tau in Washington, and Lorne Cook in Brussels, contributed to this report. Erika Kinetz And Paolo Santalucia, The Associated Press
Associated Press
27 minutes ago
- Associated Press
US-backed Israeli company's spyware used to target European journalists, Citizen Lab finds
ROME (AP) — Spyware from a U.S.-backed Israeli company was used to target the phones of at least three prominent journalists in Europe, two of whom are editors at an investigative news site in Italy, according to digital researchers at Citizen Lab, citing new forensic evidence of the attacks. The findings come amid a growing questions about what role the government of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni may have played in spying on journalists and civil society activists critical of her leadership, and raised new concerns about the potential for abuse of commercial spyware, even in democratic countries. 'Any attempts to illegally access data of citizens, including journalists and political opponents, is unacceptable, if confirmed,' the European Commission said in a statement Wednesday in response to questions from members of parliament. 'The Commission will use all the tools at its disposal to ensure the effective application of EU law.' Meloni's office declined to comment Thursday, but a prominent member of her Cabinet has said that Italy 'rigorously respected' the law and that the government hadn't illegally spied on journalists. Mercenary spyware industry The company behind the hacks, Paragon Solutions, has sought to position itself as a virtuous player in the mercenary spyware industry and won U.S. government contracts, The Associated Press found. Backed by former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, Paragon was reportedly acquired by AE Industrial Partners, a private investment firm based in Florida, in a December deal worth at least $500 million, pending regulatory approvals. AE Industrial Partners didn't directly respond to requests for comment on the deal. Paragon's spyware, Graphite, was used to target around 90 WhatsApp users from more than two dozen countries, primarily in Europe, Meta said in January. Since then, there's been a scramble to figure out who was hacked and who was responsible. 'We've seen first-hand how commercial spyware can be weaponized to target journalists and civil society, and these companies must be held accountable,' a spokesperson for WhatsApp told AP in an email. 'WhatsApp will continue to protect peoples' ability to communicate privately.' Meta said the vulnerability has been patched and they have not detected subsequent attacks. Meta also sent a cease-and-desist letter to Paragon. Last month, a California court awarded Meta $168 million in damages from Israel's NSO Group, whose spyware was used to hack 1,400 WhatsApp accounts, including of journalists, activists and government officials. Journalists targeted The Citizen Lab's findings, released today, show that the use of spyware against journalists has continued, despite the backlash against NSO Group, and establish for the first time that Paragon was able to successfully infect Apple devices. Ciro Pellegrino, who heads the Naples newsroom of an investigative news outlet called received a notice on April 29 that his iPhone had been targeted. Last year, Fanpage secretly infiltrated the youth wing of Meloni's Brothers of Italy party and filmed some of them making fascist and racist remarks. Pellegrino's colleague, Fanpage editor-in-chief Francesco Cancellato, also received a notice from Meta that his Android device had been targeted by Paragon spyware, though forensic evidence that his phone was actually infected with Graphite hasn't yet surfaced, according to Citizen Lab. The Citizen Lab's report today also revealed a third case, of a 'prominent European journalist,' who asked to remain anonymous, but is connected to the Italian cluster by forensic evidence unearthed by researchers at the laboratory, which is run out of the Munk School at the University of Toronto. The Citizen Lab, which has analyzed all the devices, said the attack came via iMessage, and that Apple has patched the vulnerability. Apple did not respond immediately to requests for comment. 'Paragon is now mired in exactly the kind of abuse scandal that NSO Group is notorious for,' said John Scott-Railton, a senior researcher at the Citizen Lab. 'This shows the industry and its way of doing business is the problem. It's not just a few bad apples.' Stealthy spyware Paragon's spyware is especially stealthy because it can compromise a device without any action from the user. Similar to the NSO Group's notorious Pegasus spyware, which has been blacklisted by the U.S. government, Graphite allows the operator to covertly access applications, including encrypted messengers like Signal and WhatsApp. 'There's no link to click, attachment to download, file to open or mistake to make,' Scott-Railton said. 'One moment the phone is yours, and the next minute its data is streaming to an attacker.' Parliamentary oversight COPASIR, the parliamentary committee overseeing the Italian secret services, took the rare step last week of making public the results of its investigation into the government's use of Paragon. The COPASIR report said that Italian intelligence services hadn't spied on Cancellato, the editor of Fanpage. The report did confirm the surveillance, with tools including Graphite, of civil society activists, but said they had been targeted legally and with government authorization — not as activists but over their work related to irregular immigration and national security. Giovanni Donzelli, vice president of COPASIR and a prominent member of Meloni's Brothers of Italy party, declined further comment Thursday, saying the parliamentary report was 'more relevant than an analysis done by a privately funded Canadian laboratory.' Citizen Lab says it's 'rigorously independent,' and doesn't accept research funding from governments or companies. Italy and Paragon both say they've terminated their relationship, but offer starkly different versions of the breakup. Paragon referred questions to a statement it gave to Israeli newspaper Haaretz, in which the company said that it stopped providing spyware to Italy after the government declined its offer to help investigate Cancellato's case. Italian authorities, however, said they had rejected Paragon's offer over national security concerns and ended the relationship following media outcry. U.S. contracts Paragon has been keen to deflect reputational damage that could, in theory, impact its contracts with the U.S. government. A 2023 executive order, which so far hasn't been overturned by U.S. President Donald Trump, prohibits federal government departments and agencies from acquiring commercial spyware that has been misused by foreign governments, including to limit freedom of expression and political dissent. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security awarded Paragon a one-year, $2 million contract last September for operations and support of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, public records show. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has also reportedly used the spyware. In December 2022, Adam Schiff, the California Democrat who at the time chaired the House Intelligence Committee, wrote to the administrator of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration questioning whether the DEA's use of Graphite spyware undermined efforts to deter the 'broad proliferation of powerful surveillance capabilities to autocratic regimes and others who may misuse them.' ___ Byron Tau in Washington, and Lorne Cook in Brussels, contributed to this report.
Entrepreneur
an hour ago
- Entrepreneur
Shaquille O'Neal to Pay Nearly $2M to Settle FTX Lawsuit
NBA Hall of Famer Shaq is settling a class action lawsuit brought by FTX investors who claim they were misled. NBA Hall of Famer (and prolific franchise owner) Shaquille O'Neal will pay $1.8 million to settle claims from investors that he misled them into investing in FTX, the bankrupt and infamous crypto exchange formerly led by Sam Bankman-Fried. The settlement will cost Shaq around $1 million more than he got paid for the FTX commercial in the first place, which was reportedly around $750,000. RELATED: From Tom Brady to Kevin O'Leary – See Who Lost Big in the Wake of the FTX Crypto Collapse After being named in a class-action lawsuit in December 2022 alongside other celebrities who starred in FTX promotions, including Tom Brady and Larry David, O'Neal told CNBC that he was just acting in a commercial, not giving financial advice. "A lot of people think I'm involved, but I was just a paid spokesperson for a commercial," O'Neal said at the time. O'Neal allegedly dodged process servers for months but was served with legal documents in April 2023. If approved by the judge overseeing the case, the settlement would officially end the class action lawsuit, which was filed by FTX investors who deposited money between May 2019 and late 2022, and release him from future liability in this matter, fully resolving all claims without O'Neal having to admit any wrongdoing. It also bans him from seeking reimbursement from the FTX estate, per CNBC. RELATED: Sam Bankman-Fried Sentenced to 25 Years in Prison for Multibillion-Dollar Crypto Fraud Bankman-Fried is currently serving a 25-year prison sentence for seven counts of fraud and conspiracy related to the FTX collapse. Business Insider reports he may be released four years early for good behavior.
