News
The rise and fall of Canadian “crypto king” Aiden Pleterski
- By Holly Honderich
- BBC news
May 16, 2024
Image caption, In a video obtained by the CBC, Mr. Pleterski apologizes to investors
In December 2022, in the middle of the night, 25-year-old Aiden Pleterski was kidnapped in downtown Toronto.
His captors released the self-proclaimed “King of Cryptocurrencies” after three days, but under threat: According to court documents, Mr. Pleterski had to find money quickly.
“I’m sorry, I really am, I didn’t want or intend to ruin anyone’s life,” says a wounded and bloodied Mr Pleterski in a video obtained by CBC News. His lawyer later claimed that the video was shot during the kidnapping.
It was not the first – nor the last – problem for the young Canadian who presented himself as a cryptocurrency wizard promising “expert investments”.
This week, following a 16-month investigation, Ontario police and the provincial securities commission announced that Mr Pleterski had been charged with fraud over C$5,000 ($3,600; £2,900) and laundering of proceeds of crime.
Police also charged another man, Colin Murphy, 27, allegedly an associate of Mr Pleterski.
The investigation, dubbed “Project Swan” by authorities, is believed to be the largest fraud case ever in the region, Durham Regional Police Chief Peter Moreira said Thursday.
It involves interviews with “a large number” of victims, more than three dozen court orders and thousands of pages of financial documents, he said.
Mr. Pleterski was not registered “in any capacity” with any Canadian securities regulator, said Stephen Henkel, at the Ontario Securities Commission.
Authorities said Pleterski may have solicited investors as early as February 2024.
If convicted, he faces up to 14 years behind bars.
None of the allegations against Mr Pleterski have been tested in court.
In announcing the charges Thursday, Ontario authorities remained tight-lipped about the details of their case, citing a publication ban on the case.
But according to the ongoing bankruptcy proceedings, Pleterski had raised about 41.5 million Canadian dollars from investors, promising to invest in cryptocurrencies and foreign markets.
Image source, Durham Regional Police Service
According to court documents, he invested just 1.6 percent of that sum, spending millions on luxury cars, private jet flights and lakeside mansions.
Mr. Pleterski was still in high school when he began dabbling in cryptocurrency, using it to make purchases in video games such as Call of Duty.
At the same time, he started noticing people “posting luxury cars, posting luxury lifestyles” on social media, he said during an interview for his bankruptcy case.
Mr. Pleterski looked into the issue and found that many claim to earn money by investing in cryptocurrencies.
“That’s what piqued my interest,” he said.
By 2020, Pleterski began investing, starting with a few thousand dollars from family members and some money from his job as a baseball umpire.
By December of that year, he had moved into his rented house, paying C$9,000 a month from income from his businesses plus a “couple of thousand dollars” from a government emergency subsidy for those financially affected by the pandemic of Covid-19.
A few months later, he had moved again, to a multimillion-dollar, five-bedroom mansion in Burlington, 50 km (30 miles) south of Toronto.
That same year, his parents wanted to invest and gave him a sum of C$50,000, according to court documents. Mr. Pleterski gave his parents a return on their investment, they said, as well as luxury gifts: a McLaren 60LT and a BMW M8 for his father, a Louis Vuitton bag and a Burberry coat for his mother, and a Bentley Bentayga from 2017 for the couple’s wedding. anniversary.
Dragan and Kathy Pleterski told lawyers at Grant Thornton, an accounting firm and trustee named in the bankruptcy case, that they believed their son was “running a successful investment business.”
Meanwhile, he was cultivating the kind of social media presence that first piqued his interest in investing. Mr. Pleterski posted photos of himself on private jets, on vacation in Miami and the Bahamas and of a driveway full of luxury cars.
“Where will life take me next?” she wrote in a caption.
But in April 2022, cracks in Mr. Pleterski’s luxurious life began to show.
Lawsuits filed by investors began to pile up, with allegations of misappropriation of their money.
From there, it was a slow trickle. In July, the Ontario Superior Court ordered Mr. Pleterski’s assets to be frozen. In August, the court ordered him and his company bankrupt.
Then, in December, the alleged kidnapping.
Last summer, Toronto police arrested five suspects in kidnapping-for-ransom and other charges, including a man who had invested funds with Mr. Pleterski, court documents say.
The new owners of Mr. Pleterski’s Burlington mansion also faced threats.
Canadian NBA star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and his partner Hailey Summers fled the property after a man showed up and demanded to know where Mr Pleterski was.
After the couple reported the incident, police said they had received previous reports of attempted break-ins at the property.
“Ms. Summers and Mr. Gilgeous-Alexander were sufficiently alarmed by this news that they left their newly purchased dream home, never to return,” their lawyer said in court documents. The couple later won a lawsuit canceling the home purchase.
For his part, Pleterski made what appeared to be one of his first public references to the saga on Thursday, posting a simple Instagram story thanking his followers for standing by him.
“So many of you guys support me, you all are amazing,” he wrote.