Aiden Pleterski led a lavish lifestyle and owned McLaren sports cars and a Lamborghini — and even rented a plush waterfront home for $45,000 a month.
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A self-styled "Crypto King" who allegedly fleeced investors out of millions was kidnapped and tortured, according to explosive court documents.
Aiden Pleterski led a lavish lifestyle and owned McLaren sports cars and a Lamborghini — and even rented a plush waterfront home for $45,000 a month.
He had promised his investors healthy returns of 7%, but it all came crashing down and he ended up filing for bankruptcy.
It's believed Pleterski, who was 23 when his company went under, was abducted by disgruntled creditors.
Testimony from his father Dragan reveals:
"He was taken. They basically held him for approximately three days, drove him around various parts of Southern Ontario, beat him, tortured him, allowed him to make specific phone calls to specific people only. I was not one of those people that he was allowed to contact."
One person that Pleterski was allowed to contact was a man called Sandeep Gupta, his landlord.
Gupta recalled receiving multiple calls late at night from Pleterski, in which he said:
"I'm kidnapped. I'm with some bad people right now. They need $3 million. I have nobody else to call. My parents don't have that type of money, and you're the only person who can help me, that type of thing, in a frantic way."
Gupta told him that this would be impossible to arrange — and while he was determined not to pay any money, he wanted to engineer the situation so he didn't come to harm. On a different phone, he began to call 911.
Over the following days, the landlord worked with officers in an attempt to set up a sting meeting and ensure that Pleterski could be brought to safety.
He was later released on the understanding that he would get the cash to his kidnappers as soon as possible — and was warned that interacting with law enforcement would make his situation much, much worse.
Gupta said in his testimony that Pleterski's actions had put him and his family in danger — with random people also visiting the property that the fallen entrepreneur was renting.
Efforts are now underway to recover as much money as possible for Pleterski's victims.
While he has claimed that the money was lost in a series of bad trades and margin calls, he's been accused of blowing millions on his lavish lifestyle. It's estimated that he had only invested 1.6% of the funds he was given. The court filing says:
"The total amount spent by Pleterski on lifestyle expenses, such as his Lamborghinis, McLarens, flights on private jets, etc. is approximately $15.9 million or 38% of the total disbursements paid by Pleterski over a period of approximately 2.5 years."
He allegedly attempted to defend himself by saying he was a "20-something-year-old kid."
