27th March 2023 – (Ottawa) Canada’s self-proclaimed “Crypto King” Aiden Pleterski, 23, was allegedly kidnapped, tortured, and held for ransom after being accused of running an investment scheme that fleeced investors out of millions. Pleterski was petitioned into bankruptcy last August, and since then, claims worth $25 million Canadian have been filed in his case.
Pleterski promised to pool investors’ money and invest it in cryptocurrency and foreign exchange positions. However, he allegedly invested less than 2% of the total amount, with $41.5 million received. Meanwhile, he spent almost $16 million on his personal lifestyle, including private jets, exotic vacations, and luxury vehicles such as Ferraris, Audis, Lamborghinis, McLarens, Land Rovers, and a BMW.
Documents filed on March 14 included testimony from Pleterski’s father, Dragan Pleterski, who claimed that his son was kidnapped for approximately three days in December 2022. The kidnappers allegedly beat and tortured him and allowed him to make specific phone calls to specific people only.
Pleterski’s landlord, Sandeep Gupta, was one of the people he contacted while in captivity, asking for $3 million to pay his kidnappers. According to Pleterski’s father, his son was released under the condition that he quickly find money to pay his kidnappers and not contact law enforcement.
“He was released with the threat that he needed to come up with some money fast, and if he had gone to the police, that there would be a lot more trouble,” Pleterski’s father said.
According to Pleterski’s testimony, his troubles began in November 2021 when he claimed to have lost all his investments as crypto markets began to reverse from their all-time highs. As his losses mounted, he said he took aggressive positions to try and “get some people their money back.”
“I essentially tried to redeem myself…but obviously in doing so, I guess you could say greed took over,” he testified. “I was trying to make returns that obviously weren’t feasible or weren’t necessarily possible at the time, and it just caused more losses.”