Aiden Pleterski’s lawyer hasn’t said anything about the latest claims
Authorities are trying to figure out what Canada’s self-proclaimed “Crypto King” did with the money investors gave him. New details include a possible kidnapping, investors who were tricked, and losses of more than $40 million.
A new trustee report from bankruptcy proceedings against Aiden Pleterski says that the 24-year-old was taken in the middle of the night last December while authorities were trying to find millions of dollars that had been given to him to invest. The trustee thought that most of the money was spent on a lavish lifestyle and that only a small amount was invested.
Pleterski’s father told the trustee that his son was beaten and tortured while being driven around Southern Ontario. Pleterski’s landlord said he got a call from someone asking for $3 million in ransom.
According to the papers, Pleterski was released after a few days, but he was told he needed to come up with the money soon.
CBC Toronto tried to get a comment from Pleterski’s lawyer about the latest accusations, but hasn’t heard back.
WATCH | CBC’s Angelina King reports on the latest news about the man known as “Crypto King” in Ontario:
Some investors have hired lawyer Norman Groot to sue Pleterski in order to get their money back. He says that $41.5 million might be just the tip of the iceberg.
Groot says that number doesn’t include the cash or cryptocurrency that Pleterski got or sent out, so the real amount of money lost could be close to twice as much.
Private jets, luxury cars, vacation
The trustee report shows that Pleterski took $41.5 million from investors and told them he was going to invest it in crypto currency and foreign exchange. But the report says that he only put in about 2% of that, or $670,000.
And it says that Pleterski spent 38% of the money, or about $16 million, on himself. He rented private jets, went on vacations, and bought more luxury cars.
The report says that Pleterski needed a place to store all of it, so he used money from investors to put down a $500,000 deposit on a warehouse in Ajax.
It also says that Pleterski used more than $1 million from investors to live in a mansion in Burlington, where he paid $45,000 a month in rent and put down a deposit to buy it.
Colin Murphy, who is said to have worked with Pleterski, got $1.3 million from the scheme, the report says. CBC Toronto tried to get a comment from Murphy’s lawyer, but did not hear back.
Murphy has told CBC Toronto in the past that he is not guilty.
“I guess you could say that greed won.
Groot, on the other hand, says that what Pleterski is doing is a Ponzi scheme.
Pleterski, for his part, told the trustee that when the price of cryptocurrency dropped in the fall of 2021, he lost investments but tried to get people’s money back.
“In doing so, I guess you could say my greed got the best of me, and I took very risky positions and tried to make returns that weren’t possible or weren’t necessarily possible at the time,” he said.
Investors are trying to get their $25 million back, but bank records show that Pleterski made more than $41 million.
In other words there are other investors out there who lost $16 million and have seemingly kept quiet about how they plan to get their money back.