NY crypto investor charged with kidnapping business partner over bitcoin in 3-week long "wrench attack"

A New York grand jury has indicted a 37-year-old cryptocurrency investor accused of violently kidnapping a business partner in Manhattan's upscale Soho neighborhood for three weeks, in a newly coined “wrench attack.”

Grand jury testimony said that the accused, John Woeltz, shocked the victim with electric wires, and dangling him over a staircase to try to get him to give up his Bitcoin password, prosecutors said on Wednesday.

Woeltz was arrested on May 23, court records show.

According to a criminal complaint filed in Manhattan criminal court, an unnamed man told New York City police that Woeltz and another man, William Duplessie, on May 6th took his electronic devices, passport, and demanded he give up his password so they could steal his cryptocurrency.

Recently nick-named a “wrench attack,” the blockchain investigative risk management firm TRM said these physical attacks targeting individuals “associated with cryptocurrency wealth” have been on the rise in the past several months.

Woeltz and Duplessie, 33, have not yet entered pleas. Their lawyers declined to comment.

Local media have called Woeltz a cryptocurrency investor and described the alleged victim as an Italian man.

Both had ties to a crypto hedge fund in New York, the New York Times reported, citing an internal police report described by a law enforcement official.

The blockchain investigative risk management firm TRM said there has been an uptick in physical attacks on individuals “associated with cryptocurrency wealth.”

Recently nick-named a “wrench attack,” TRM describes the assault as an exploitation of human vulnerability and physical security, “bypassing even the most robust digital safeguards.”

Court records say when the man refused to share his password, Woeltz and Duplessie allegedly began a series of brutal beatings until the man managed to escape weeks later.

They tied his wrists, hit him on the head with a gun, and threatened to kill his family, according to the complaints against the two men.

Duplessie was arrested on Tuesday and is due in court for a preliminary hearing on Friday. Judges have ordered both men detained.

Woeltz is due to be arraigned on June 11.

TRM describes a wrench attack as an exploitation of human vulnerability and physical security, “bypassing even the most robust digital safeguards.”

Additionally ,TRM noted that wrench attacks are not just increasing in numbers globally, but in both “frequency and severity.”