MANDEL: Did 'Crypto King' stage his own kidnapping?
· Toronto Sun
Self-annointed Crypto King Aiden Pleterski was kidnapped four years ago and tortured for several days under threat of death unless he came up with the money owed to an angry investor.
Or so prosecutors have alleged at the jury trial that began this week.
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But one of the lawyers for the alleged kidnappers seemed to suggest it was all a hoax concocted by the fraudster – and that the Crown witness who called 911 to report the abduction was actually Pleterski’s partner in crime in hiding the millions he’d scammed.
Akil Heywood, the alleged mastermind of the kidnapping scheme, and accused gun-toting kidnappers Alfredo Paladino and Rakeem Henry have pleaded not guilty.
As the prosecutors’ first witness, Sandeep Gupta has testified Pleterski was leasing-to-own a $10 million Burlington mansion owned by his family’s company, but after the crypto crash in 2022, the 23-year-old had fallen behind on his $45,000-a-month payments.
Gupta, head of the company’s hotel division, admitted being a “sounding board” for the “young kid” after he confessed he’d lost millions of investors’ money in the downturn but was trying to pay them back.
Gupta claims he didn’t know about Ponzi scheme
Gupta insisted he’d never have helped him if he’d known Pleterski was running a Ponzi scheme.
In the early hours of Dec. 6, 2022, the hotel executive said he received a call at his Ritz Carlton condo from Pleterski urgently demanding $2 to $3 million. He sounded in “distress” and believing he’d been kidnapped, Gupta called 911.
Paladino’s lawyer Leora Shemesh kept referring to it as the “purported kidnapping” during her cross-examination.
She accused Gupta of being far more than just a landlord and “sounding board.” He’d moved Pleterski into a company condo in Horseshoe Valley, linked him up with a lawyer to represent him at the bankruptcy proceedings against him and approved the affidavit he prepared for the hearing where the failed crypto king claimed: “I’ve lost all of my market investments and those of people who were investing with me. The suggestion that I have money stored away somewhere is entirely false.”
Shemesh questioned why Gupta was still helping him – even bringing him into the corporate office and giving him a computer to use.
“Aiden was somebody who was in trouble safety-wise. He was young. We thought that he was also possibly doing harm to himself. When somebody reaches out for help, we want to try to assist,” he explained.
Gupta denied that assistance went as far as helping him hide assets – they were discussing his taking over the leases on his Ferrari and Lamborghini to help him pay down equity in the mansion he was still trying to buy.
“Aiden was very confident that he was going to earn his money back and actually close on the home. I was limiting my risk on the home.”
Accused of defrauding investors in 2022
In October 2022 – after Pleterski had been declared bankrupt and was widely accused of defrauding investors – he was texting Gupta about getting help to rent a condo at the Ritz where he lived and where units went from $8,000 to $30,000.
“The very Ritz that Mr. Pleterski was dropped off at after this purported kidnapping,” Shemesh said. “He somehow makes his way to you.”
The defence lawyer then questioned the 911 call.
“Mr. Pleterski never tells you he’s kidnapped,” she said. “Mr. Pleterski never tells you that he’s hurt.”
Gupta agreed but said he could tell from his voice and he believed his kidnappers were listening in and that’s why Pleterski kept saying he was also involved.
Shemesh accused him of just that.
“I’m going to suggest to you that Mr. Pleterski worked for you,” she said.
“I would heavily disagree with that,” Gupta replied.
“That you two worked together to divert monies away from the trustee and the bankruptcy proceedings. You helped him,” Shemesh said.
“That’s absolutely false,” Gupta retorted.
And perhaps, the lawyer suggested, his accomplice then defrauded him, too. Had it occurred to him, Shemesh asked, that Pleterski’s frantic phone call during the purported kidnapping was actually an attempt to “extract two to three million” from him?
“So, I did think that afterwards,” Gupta agreed.
Pleterski, just weeks after being convicted of fraud, is set to be the star prosecution witness on Friday.