By Staff
In recent years, the world of cryptocurrency has transformed from a niche investment opportunity into a mainstream financial phenomenon. It’s estimated that close to two hundred thousand people have over $1,000,000 in their cryptocurrency portfolios. As digital assets become increasingly valuable, they have also attracted the attention of criminals looking to exploit this burgeoning market. One alarming trend that has emerged is the rise of crypto kidnappings, where criminals target individuals for their digital assets.
The chilling mantra “Your digital wallet or your life” encapsulates the severity of this threat.
Last month, police in New York arrested two men they say kidnapped and tortured Michael Valentino Teofrasto Carturan, a native of Italy whose estimated worth is over $30 million, the bulk of which was made from crypto investments. Reports say Carturan was held against his will for 17 days and was cut with a chainsaw, tased, shocked, forced to smoke crack cocaine, and dangled over a five-story balcony by his alleged captors, John Woeltz and William Duplessie, who wanted access to his digital wallet, which held $28 million in crypto.
The two men are being held without bail and face life in prison. They’ve both pleaded “not guilty.”
In May of this year in Las Vegas, three teens were accused of kidnapping a man at gunpoint, who was hosting a crypto event, and driving him to the desert, where they told him they would kill his father, whom they claimed to have kidnapped and were holding at another location, in a horrifying scene reminiscent of the baseball bat murders of Nicky and his brother in the movie Casino. The teens reportedly placed a towel over the man’s head and warned him not to look at their faces. The victim gave up his passwords, and the teens fled with $4 million in crypto and non-fungible tokens.
In France, high-profile crypto kidnappings have been in the news since 2023. In May 2025, a video emerged of a failed kidnapping attempt caught on camera. The shocking incident involved the pregnant daughter of a French crypto boss, attacked in broad daylight. The footage shows four masked men trying to force the victim and her son into a white van before being chased away by a shop owner with a fire extinguisher. It was the fourth attempted crypto-related kidnapping in just six months.
Read the full article in the July/August issue of Rounder Magazine. Preorder now!
Lead image by New Africa. Bitcoin and U.S. dollar image by hello.artmagination.com
