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Good day everyone,
I hope you are all well and having a great day, welcome to CryptoGod-1's blog on all things crypto. Today I will be looking into a recent news article I discovered which I found quite interesting. Its regarding a 23 year old who was given millions of dollars to invest, and now is facing a lawsuit by former investors in a bankruptcy proceeding and two civil lawsuits.
Who is the Crypto King
A 23 year old man from from Whitby, Ontario, Canada by the name of Aiden Pleterski, who is also known as "Crypto King" is the centre of attention suddenly. He is the owner of AP Private Equity Limited, which is an investment company that invests in cryptocurrency and foreign exchange. Heralded as a successful trader, Pleterski called every week a "winning week" and had promised investors returns of five to seven per cent, as shown from documents at an investors meeting on August 29th 2022. He has since been investigated by the Investigation Counsel PC, and the investigation is lead by its founder Norman Groot.
“People bought into it. They thought he was a young Bill Gates,” Groot said.
A young man he was but not a young Bill Gates. Pleterski had been investing in cryptocurrency since way back in 2015, and he even had an article mentioning him in Forbes magazine. This article noted his ability to leverage his knowledge as an avid gamer into understand and thriving in the online trading world. This led to more than 150 investors handing over money, totalling over a collective of $35 million, to Aiden Pleterski and his company. The problem was that Pleterski
Around $2 million of Pleterski's assets have been seized, which includes lavish possessions such as two McLarens, two BMWs and a Lamborghini, documents show. At the same time his bank accounts have been frozen. Overall he owned 11 high end cars while leasing many other, many many expensive watches that totalled between $200,000 and $400,000, and rented a waterfront home in Burlington for approximately $45,000 per month.
What Did He Do?
He is being accused of defrauding investors for a combined total of at least $35 million. He admitted to his investors at a virtual meeting that he lost all of the money given to him, and it was lost around late 2021 and early 2022 due to some poor margin calls and bad trades. At the meeting, the bankrupcy trustee requested proof and evidence of these bad trades along with bank statements, but Pleterski has so far failed to provide these.
“A lot of this money was taken in while it was escalating in value, and then when it quickly started to de-escalate in value, people wanted what they thought were their profits…which of course, he couldn’t pay out,” Groot said.
On top of this, many feel that Pleterski was running a Ponzi scheme. They feel he took in the money with promises of decent returns, and from what has been seen so far the only real possibility he could pay back one investor was from another investors money. Apparently the limited documentation he did give was forged, and when Pleterski was asked why he continued investing money when he was aware it would be impossible to pay back the investors his response was simple:
“he was a 20 something year old kid.”
He also noted how no real bookkeeping records were maintained or kept, and that he was very unorganised with no accounting advice. Everything to do with the investors and company was done via word of mouth, meaning their is no record of the payments received or who he owes what to. Statements from the investors showing transfers of the money will be of use here, but the limited amount of money available for the creditors will hamper repaying any of the 150 plus who are owed money. Pleterski was signing contracts with his investors via text messages, again showing the lack of professionalism, and to ascertain how much money is owed and where it is, the bankruptcy team is reaching out to financial institutions and locating bank statements.
It was on the 9th of August 2022 that the Ontario Superior Court of Justice declared that Pleterski and his company were bankrupt.
What Happens Now?
A lawyer working on behalf of Pleterski made it clear his client thinks the claims made against him are "wildly exaggerated." He went on to state it was shocking how nobody bothered to consider what could happen to their original investment if the cryptocurrency market crashed, which we all know it did over the last year or so. He added that Pleterski is "co-operating with the bankruptcy process and is hopeful that it will work out in the most equitable fashion for everyone involved." Currently there are no criminal charges against Pleterski, but he is facing the bankruptcy proceeding and two civil lawsuits. Norman Groot will continue to work with the original investors and has advised them that the best chance and possibly only way of getting their money back will be through the bankruptcy proceeding.
As a piece of warning and a lesson to be learnt from all of this, Groot said in a public statement:
“You shouldn't invest in what you don't understand, anytime you're putting serious money at risk you should have somebody perform some sort of due diligence, or at least bounce it off an independent trusted person to get a second opinion to make sure that you’re not making a move that you’ll later regret.”
I hope you enjoyed the article and hopefully none of your money was invested as part of this.
Have a great day,
CryptoGod-1.
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