A second cryptocurrency tycoon surrendered to police Tuesday after the kidnapping and torturing of an Italian tourist for his Bitcoin passcode.
William Duplessie, a tech founder living in Switzerland, was accompanied by his lawyers when he turned himself into the New York City Police Department on Tuesday, multiple outlets reported.
Duplessie is a business partner of John Woeltz, 37, who was arrested on Friday after his 28-year-old captive fled a $40,000-a-month rented SoHo townhouse and flagged down a traffic cop, according to NBC New York.
A source with knowledge of the situation told NBC New York that the two men had been violent toward the victim in the past—but not to this degree. The three men had something of a “Wolf of Wall Street/frat guys gone wild” dynamic between them, the person added.
Duplessie, 33, has a degree in business from Tulane University in New Orleans and has previously lived in Los Angeles, his Crunchbase profile says.
He has been a long-term Bitcoin pusher, appearing on a YouTube show in 2017 to claim it would reach a value of $1 million by . Its price is currently $110,193.
The victim, whose name has not been released by authorities, was a partner in a crypto venture with his two alleged torturers. The details of their relationship are now key to the police investigation.
The victim, an Italian citizen reportedly worth around $30 million, told police that he was held prisoner in the townhouse for three weeks as the men tried various twisted methods to get him to reveal the code to his Bitcoin wallet.
The torture included putting a gun to his head, pistol-whipping him, shocking him with electric wires, and holding a chainsaw to his leg. At one point, he was dangled over a ledge as his captors threatened to kill him and his family if he didn’t comply.
The ordeal finally ended Friday when the victim managed to escape and get in touch with authorities.
It’s unclear what individual roles Woeltz and Duplessie played in the scheme.
An assistant to Woeltz, 24-year-old Beatrice Folchi, was also arrested and charged over the plot, but district attorneys have declined to prosecute her pending further investigation, The New York Post reported.
A profile on the business information site Crunchbase says that Duplessie was the co-founder and CEO of Pangea Blockchain Fund, a crypto investment start-up. The firm was in the process of liquidation as of last year, according to its site.
On Monday, The New York Post reported that a “Swiss crypto trader”—seemingly referring to Duplessie—was spending Memorial Day partying in the Hamptons before intending to turn himself in on Tuesday.
Woeltz, the other alleged accomplice, is known to some as the Crypto King of Kentucky, his home state. Sources told NBC New York that Woeltz is worth around $300 million.
A relative of Woeltz has come to his defense, telling The New York Post that he is a “kind, caring, loving person,” who must have been “completely controlled by other people” during the torture scheme.
Duplessie appears to have been brought up in affluent Greenwich, Connecticut, and has two brothers who have both been involved in crypto schemes, public records suggest. His father, James has a career in finance, including dealing in distressed debts.
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