Canada’s $41M Crypto Scammer’s Case Is A Story Of Fraud With Horrifying Consequences

Aiden Pleterski, the self-proclaimed Canadian “Crypto King,” who allegedly scammed approximately $41 million of investors’ funds, revealed the recently confidential details of his kidnap, torture and ransom – a familiar story of fraud and its harrowing consequences.

Ontario court documents filed earlier this month revealed the details of how the 24-year-old Canadian “Crypto King” was kidnapped, tortured and set free by his captors in three days sometime in December 2022 as a result of his supposed botched cryptocurrency investment scheme.

Court documents filed on March 14 detailed the testimony of Aiden’s father Dragan Pleterski.

“He was taken,” Dragan said, adding, “they basically held him for approximately three days, drove him around different parts of Southern Ontario, beat him, tortured him, allowed him to make specific phone calls to specific people only.”

One of the people Aiden reached out to at the time was Sandeep Gupta, his landlord, whom he pleaded to and asked to give $3 million to his captors, disclosing that his life was in danger.

“I received multiple calls from Aiden, but it was late at night,” Gupta said, “and then at around 1:30 a.m., I finally had enough, and I picked up the call.”

The landlord shared how Aiden claimed there was no one else he could call, to which he responded with, “There’s absolutely nothing I can do.”

Aiden was eventually released with the agreement that he would immediately find money to pay for his ransom and refrain from telling law enforcement of the incident.

“He was released with the threat that he needed to come up with some money fast, and if he had went to the police, that there would be a lot more trouble,” Aiden’s father said, noting that the release happened three days after his son was kidnapped.

According to the Canadian “Crypto King,” the trouble started in November 2021 when he alleged to have lost all of his investments as the crypto market started to tank after reaching all-time high prices.

Aiden, based on the bankruptcy trustee report submitted to the court earlier this year, is believed to have raised approximately $41.5 million from investors. He promised investors that he would pool their funds and invest them in crypto and foreign exchange, but he only invested $670,000, which is equivalent to less than 2% of the millions of investments, according to the court documents.

Aiden was accused of misleading investors and based on the findings, expended almost 38% of the raised funds, or around $16 million on his personal expenses. These include lavish vacations, the purchase of high-end cars, and private jet rentals, among many others.

Bankruptcy trustee Rob Stelzer said that Aiden “ran a business in which he told people he would invest their money and that’s not what happened,” noting that “he really didn’t do what he said he was going to do.”

“I guess you could say greed took over, and I was taking very aggressive positions, and 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,” Aiden said about his failed crypto investment scheme in a statement given to the bankruptcy and insolvency court of Ontario

Aiden is undergoing bankruptcy proceedings while authorities are trying to recover $29 million worth of funds he allegedly took from investors.