Crypto Investor Accused of Kidnapping for Bitcoin Password

Okay, so get this. There's this wild story coming out of Manhattan, specifically in a fancy area called Soho. Apparently, a guy who's into crypto stuff, this 37-year-old dude, is accused of kidnapping his business partner. Like, seriously, for three whole weeks!

The story is pretty crazy. Prosecutors say this guy, John Woeltz is his name, allegedly shocked the partner with electric wires and even dangled him over a staircase. Why? To get his Bitcoin password, which is just... wow. Woeltz got arrested back in May, the 23rd actually, court papers show.

So, here's how it went down, according to a complaint filed in court in Manhattan. An unnamed guy told the cops in New York City that on May 6th, Woeltz and another guy named William Duplessie took his phone and passport. They wanted the password so they could grab his cryptocurrency. Neither Woeltz nor Duplessie, who is 33, have said if they are guilty or not yet. Their lawyers didn't want to talk about it.

Local news has been calling Woeltz a crypto investor. They also said the guy who was allegedly kidnapped is Italian. Both of them had some kind of connection to a crypto hedge fund in New York, according to the New York Times, which quoted a police report that a law enforcement person described.

When the guy wouldn't give up his password, Woeltz and Duplessie supposedly started beating him up. Like, really bad beatings that went on for weeks until the poor guy finally got away. They apparently tied his wrists, hit him on the head with a gun, and even said they'd kill his family, according to the complaints against them. Duplessie was picked up by the cops recently, on Tuesday, and has a hearing coming up on Friday. The judges have ordered both of them to stay locked up for now. Woeltz is set to go before a judge on June 11th.

It just makes you wonder, what makes people do stuff like this for money?