Ontario’s ‘Crypto King’ and Associate Arrested, Charged with Fraud
Ontario’s self-proclaimed ‘Crypto King’ and an associate have been arrested and charged with fraud.
Aiden Pleterski, 25, is facing charges of fraud over $5,000 and laundering the proceeds of crime, according to the Oshawa courthouse. He was released on bail Tuesday, with his parents posting a $100,000 surety to ensure he follows his bail conditions, court documents reveal.
Pleterski’s bail conditions include surrendering his passport, avoiding contact with investors, refraining from making any social media posts about financial matters such as soliciting investments, and not buying or trading cryptocurrencies.
Pleterski’s associate, Colin Murphy, 27, has also been charged with fraud over $5,000, according to Durham Regional Police.
In a news release Wednesday, police announced that the two men had been charged following a 16-month investigation, dubbed Project Swan, into Aiden Pleterski. Durham police began receiving numerous complaints about an alleged investment fraud involving Pleterski in July 2022.
During the investigation, police discovered another suspect, Colin Murphy, who claimed to generate “large weekly profits through savvy investments.” Police allege some victims gave Murphy money under similar circumstances to Pleterski, expecting Murphy to invest it on their behalf.
Pleterski has been under scrutiny since the summer of 2022, when he was forced into bankruptcy by some of his investors. For more than a year and a half, Pleterski’s investors have been trying to recover over $40 million they had given him to invest in cryptocurrency and foreign exchange. A Toronto-based bankruptcy proceeding in Ontario Superior Court has recovered about $3 million for roughly 160 investors.
Bankruptcy proceedings are managed by a licensed insolvency trustee, a federally regulated professional responsible for investigating the finances of a bankrupt person or business and administering their estate. In this case, the trustee is from Grant Thornton, an accounting firm. Their investigation found that Pleterski invested only about two percent of investor funds, spending nearly $16 million on personal expenses such as renting private jets, going on vacations, acquiring luxury cars, and leasing a lakefront mansion prior to his bankruptcy.
At that time, Pleterski was portraying himself as a professional streamer online. During a livestream, when a viewer commented that Pleterski was “jobless,” he responded by saying, “internet money gang, internet money.”
His arrest is the latest development in a year-long CBC Toronto investigation into the Crypto King. This investigation has also seen one of Pleterski’s investors arrested for allegedly kidnapping him in December 2022, and a Canadian NBA star successfully suing to withdraw from an $8.4 million purchase of a lakefront mansion where Pleterski used to live.
Associate Imprisoned for Contempt of Court
Toronto reported on Murphy’s sentencing for contempt of court in a lawsuit filed by an investor attempting to recover $120,000 given to Murphy for investment with Pleterski.
Murphy was sentenced to five months in jail for refusing to surrender his iPhone while an Anton Piller order, a type of civil search warrant, was executed against him early last year, and for deleting data on the phone afterward.
Murphy was released from jail in March pending an appeal of his contempt of court sentence.
He has also been ordered to pay the investor $120,000 in liquidated damages by surrendering his 2017 Porsche 9TS, 2020 Ford F250, and firearms for liquidation and sale. This stems from a default judgment issued by Ontario Superior Court Justice Hugh O’Connell against Murphy for fraud and breach of fiduciary duty in November.
Unlike Murphy, Pleterski cannot currently be sued in civil court because his bankruptcy proceeding is still ongoing.
The Durham Regional Police Service and the Ontario Securities Commission will hold a news conference in Whitby, Ont., on Thursday regarding Pleterski.
