The Crypto Criminals and The Soho Townhouse
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What are crypto wrench attacks and how do they work?
If you've been paying attention to crime stories lately, you may have noticed there's a new genre of muggings and kidnappings happening. Ones that have to do with cryptocurrency. Some of these crimes, known as wrench attacks, use violence to get access to a victim's cryptocurrency assets. It's like holding someone up at gunpoint and stealing their wallet. Except it's their cryptocurrency wallet. Today we're talking about one such alleged attack that occurred in an upscale New York townhouse and the two men accused of carrying it out, John Waltz and William Du Plessis. Cryptocurrency investor is in a New York jail today charged with kidnapping a 28-year-old man. A suspected kidnapper held a man captive and tortured him for weeks.
John Waltz and Will DuPlessis allegedly beat and tortured the victim, hanging him over a ledge and threatening to kill him if he did not provide his Bitcoin password. Last year, they were arraigned on charges of first-degree kidnapping, assault, coercion, attempted grand larceny, and criminal possession of a weapon. The pair pled not guilty, and their trial is upcoming. This story is a modern-day American psycho, like Wolf of Wall Street meets Crypto Paranoia. It's got guns and cocaine and a party house filled with employees from Brandy Melville. So how did two guys allegedly pose as crypto investors to find potential targets? And what was going on in their crazy world of crypto? Let's find out.
Welcome back, everybody, to Infamous, a Sony Music Entertainment and Campside Media production. I'm Vanessa Grigoriadis. So today we are talking about the spate of crypto kidnappings that you may have heard about if you are interested in crime and being very online and finding out the horrible things that people do to each other. Basically, there's a bunch of people who are nefariously involved with other people, and maybe those people have some of their money. And so they bring, let's say, a lead pipe to their house and say, hey, I'm going to hit you with this pipe unless you open your crypto wallet and send me everything inside it. So there were dozens of such crypto crimes in 2025. It's almost like this is the new mafia.
If you're a crypto crime boss, this is the new way that you operate. So today we are going to talk about the one that is the most famous because it was on the cover of New York Magazine in a hugely well-read story, the crypto maniacs and the torture townhouse. So we're going to be getting into all of that with co-author of the piece, Ezra Marcus, who is a freelance reporter who writes about crime and culture for New York Magazine, the New York Times Magazine and other publications. Welcome, Ezra.
What happened during the alleged kidnapping case in Soho?
Thanks for having me.
So Ezra, your being is just weird crime shit on the internet?
That's pretty much it, yeah. I mean, it's all over the place, but that tends to be the intersection of all the different things that I write about.
And is that because you yourself are extremely online and extremely young?
Well, I'm not as extremely young as I used to be, but I think that when I first started out as a freelance reporter, that was kind of my edge to a certain extent. And I think that I am just drawn to deviant behavior and I'm fascinated by it. I think that nowadays a lot of the craziest types of behavior are people that are operating in online adjacent spaces. And so I find myself there a lot. Then again, I wouldn't say I'm a particularly online person more than anyone else, but I definitely use social media.
I guess we're all sort of online to our soul's detriment at this point. But I do think that it's an amazing beat and you've broken... a lot of really good stories. So would you consider the crypto criminals to be a subculture or you think they're just more mainstream bro criminals who operate in the crypto space?
I think there's a lot to unpack there. When it comes to these guys, I think that trying to delineate between like what is a mainstream bro criminal and what is an underground subcultural figure is almost like a false economy when it comes to the crypto world where the underlying premises are themselves so speculative and crazy.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What are crypto wrench attacks and how do they work?
0:00–3:11
2
What happened during the alleged kidnapping case in Soho?
3:11–7:27
3
Who are John Waltz and William Du Plessis in the crypto crime scene?
7:27–11:00
4
How did the accused criminals live their lavish lifestyle?
11:00–11:48
5
What was the nature of the friendship between John and Will?
11:48–16:39
6
What led to the violent torture of Michael Carturian?
16:39–17:32
7
What is the significance of the manifesto written by the accused?
17:32–18:05
8
Why is crypto so easy to steal and what security measures can be taken?
18:05–36:12