Crypto investor accused of torturing man in bid to steal Bitcoin password

An American cryptocurrency investor has been charged with kidnapping and torturing a young man for weeks in an alleged plot to steal his Bitcoin password.
John Woeltz, 37, was arrested on Friday after Michael Valentino Teofrasto Carturan told police he had been held captive in a luxury Manhattan home where he said he was beaten, shocked with wires and dangled from the top of a fifth-storey stairwell as his captors demanded access to his cryptocurrency.
The case is the latest in a string of violent cryptocurrency-linked kidnappings in recent months, including two men in France who were found with severed fingers, and a broker who escaped from his captors in Spain.
Mr Woeltz faces four charges including assault and unlawful imprisonment. He denied all of the offences.
A second man who has only been named as an “un-apprehended male” also allegedly took part in the abuse and was mentioned during Mr Woeltz’s arraignment on Saturday, the New York Times reported.
An Italian woman, identified as Mr Woeltz’s assistant Beatrice Folchi, was also apparently arrested and charged in the case, but Ms Folchi told the New York Post that she was “not arrested” when the outlet approached her on the street on Saturday.
‘Daring escape’ after torture
US media reported that Mr Carturan, a 28-year-old from Italy, had travelled to New York City on May 6 and went to the SoHo flat Mr Woeltz has been renting for $30,000 per month since moving to the city from the US state of Kentucky.
Mr Woeltz allegedly snatched the Italian man’s electronic devices and passport before demanding that he turn over his Bitcoin password. When the visitor refused, he was allegedly bound and taken hostage for weeks.
Sources told the New York Post that Mr Carturan had been tied up with electrical wire and fitted with an airtag which tracked his movements but managed a “daring escape” on Friday by breaking out of the flat while Mr Woeltz had turned his back.
Mr Woeltz had allegedly threatened to kill Mr Carturan’s family in Italy and, at one point, “carried the victim to the top flight of stairs of the apartment in the compound and hung the victim over the ledge, after threatening to kill the victim if the victim did not provide the defendant with the victim’s Bitcoin password”, Michael Mattson, an assistant district attorney, told a Manhattan court.
Prosecutors also alleged that Mr Carturan was urinated on and forced to take drugs during the ordeal.
Among the evidence seized by police during a raid on Mr Woeltz’s flat was Polaroid pictures allegedly showing Mr Carturan being assaulted, along with a gun and several torture implements, the New York Times reported.
Mr Woeltz was remanded in custody on Saturday and ordered to surrender his passport, after prosecutors argued that he could attempt to flee on his private jet.