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 captive, Michael Valentino Teofrasto Carturan, 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 suggest that it would reach a value of $1 million. Its price is currently $110,000.
Carturan, 28, was a partner in a crypto venture with his two alleged torturers. The details of their relationship are now key to the police investigation.
Carturan, 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 Carturan 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 Duplessie, who was also involved in his start-up, has a career in finance, including dealing in distressed debts.
James Duplessie is a registered Republican who voted in the 2024 election.
Duplessie was joined by his father and one of his brothers, Stephen, on Pangea, his blockchain start-up, according to a since-removed page on the company’s site, which the Beast accessed using a web archive.
James Duplessie was previously an adviser to another crypto start-up that was exposed in 2018 for being a scam operated by a known fraudster using a false name.
The younger Duplessie has often found himself in legal hot water over the past several years, facing multiple lawsuits.
In 2024, Duplessie and his father were ordered to pay nearly $250,000 in damages after William failed to pay the $16,500-a-month rent on a Miami villa he was staying in, according to court records. His father was a guarantor. The men paid the judgment earlier this year.
William Duplessie was also named as a defendant in a 2024 suit seeking upwards of $50,000 over allegations that he permanently injured another driver when his Porsche crashed with the other man’s car on a Miami highway.
The case remains unresolved. Duplessie’s last court summons was issued on May 22—as the alleged torture plot was unfolding.
