Crypto Investor Arrested After Being Accused of Kidnapping and Torturing Italian Vacationer

A crypto investor from Kentucky was arrested in New York Metropolis this week after being accused of kidnapping and torturing an Italian vacationer. John Woeltz, 37, was taken into custody after his alleged sufferer, a 28-year-old man, broke unfastened from Woeltz’s ritzy Nolita residence and alerted a close-by site visitors agent, telling them that he had been a prisoner contained in the investor’s pad for 2 weeks, according to reports. The site visitors officer swiftly alerted police, who arrested Woeltz, information shops have reported.

The alleged sufferer, who has since been hospitalized and whom authorities have declined to call, initially met up with Woeltz at his costly residence on Could sixth, after the vacationer arrived within the metropolis, the New York Submit writes. It wasn’t lengthy afterward that the person was allegedly plunged right into a weeks-long ordeal through which he was subjected to horrifying torture methods. Some shops have reported that the sufferer is Woeltz’s former enterprise associate.

Woeltz was arraigned on Saturday morning and charged with assault, kidnapping, illegal imprisonment and legal possession of a firearm, CNN writes. He’s being held with out bail.

A lot concerning the legal case stays unclear. The New York Occasions reports that a 24-year-old lady named Beatrice Folchi was additionally arrested alongside Woeltz and was equally charged with kidnapping and illegal imprisonment. Nonetheless, Folchi was apparently seen out on the streets of New York not lengthy afterward, and informed the New York Submit that she had not been arrested. “Every part goes to be informed however with a lawyer — I can’t make any feedback proper now,” Folchi informed the outlet. One other man, recognized by police as an “unapprehended male,” can also be thought to have participated within the torture actions, the newspaper writes. It’s unknown who this particular person is or the place they could be.

Not lengthy after the alleged sufferer arrived on the residence, Woeltz is accused of stealing the person’s passport and cellphone. Woeltz and the opposite unidentified male then allegedly interrogated the sufferer, asking for his crypto pockets password. When the person refused to offer it to them, police say they proceeded to imprison and torture him by means of a wide range of horrifying and diabolical strategies, according to multiple outlets.

Police discovered Polaroids contained in the residence of the person being tied up and tortured, the New York Submit has reported. Within the pictures, the person may very well be seen certain with electrical tape and, in a single picture, had a gun pointed at his head, the Submit writes. Police additionally recovered a gun from the residence. Sources interviewed by the Submit declare to have extra details about the alleged ordeal that the vacationer went by means of. These hair-raising allegations embody:

Since being taken captive, the vacationer had been certain with an electrical wire, Tased whereas his toes had been put in water, pistol whipped, compelled to take cocaine and threatened to have his limbs minimize off with an electrical chainsaw, the sources stated. The nightmare erupted from a dispute over cryptocurrency, through which the suspect allegedly tried to extort tens of millions of {dollars} from the person by unleashing a litany of horrific tortures, in accordance with sources.

When reached for remark by Gizmodo on Friday, a NYPD public info merely supplied the next assertion: “On Friday Could twenty third, 2025, at roughly 937 hours within the neighborhood of Mulberry Road and Prince Road, a 28-year-old sufferer approached an on-duty site visitors agent and alerted him that he was a sufferer of an assault.” Gizmodo additionally reached out to Woeltz’s lawyer for remark.