MANDEL: Kidnapper who tortured 'Crypto King' wants a break
· Toronto Sun
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It’s hard to muster much sympathy for a callous kidnapper who brutally beat, waterboarded and threatened to kill Ontario’s self-proclaimed “Crypto King,” Aiden Pleterski, over three days in December 2022 and is now complaining about his own mistreatment in jail.
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As singer Alanis Morissette so famously sung, “Isn’t it ironic?”
Deren Akyeam-Pong, aka Slime Dawg Millionaire, pleaded guilty last fall to nine charges including kidnapping Pleterski, assault and various gun charges. At his hearing Thursday, the 26-year-old told a long tale of woe in a bid for a sentence reduction due to numerous injuries he suffered while in custody awaiting trial including assaults by both guards and inmates that left him with a concussion, a broken shoulder, orbital bone and hip, and missing front teeth.
He even claimed to have been “almost waterboarded” after being pepper sprayed by guards and then shoved under the showers.
Waterboarded victim
Waterboarding, of course, is just one of the many torture techniques Akyeam-Pong admitted to inflicting on Pleterski.
The failed “Crypto King” is expected to go to trial on $40-million fraud charges later this year. But at least one of his angry investors is accused of not being willing to wait that long and so took the law into his own hands.
In the agreed statement of facts, Akyeam-Pong admits he was contracted to kidnap Pleterski by an investor who lost $300,000 after the alleged Whitby fraudster was forced into bankruptcy amidst allegations he swindled tens of millions of dollars while living a champagne lifestyle of private jets, luxury cars and a waterfront mansion.
Posing as an interested crypto investor himself, Akyeam-Pong — an admitted gun-toting drug trafficker with about 70 criminal convictions — arranged to meet the boy wonder on Dec. 5, 2022 on Ordnance St. in Toronto and then invited him into the back seat of a Dodge Ram where his accomplice was waiting.
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According to the agreed statement of facts, both men pulled out their guns. Akyeam-Pong shoved it into Pleterski’s ribs, told him it was loaded and he’d shoot if he tried to escape. After Pleterski’s wrists were bound and a black garbage bag put over his head, a call came in from the angry investor: “Brother there is no more talking. I want my money. I told you this.”
Pleterski was taken to a field where Akyeam-Pong demanded he provide his crypto passwords. When he gave the wrong one, Akyeam-Pong and the second man beat him on the side of his head with their guns and punched him in the ribs.
According to the agreed statement, Akyeam-Pong then took him to a different field and demanded Pleterski get down on his knees and tell him where the money was hidden. When he said all his assets were frozen by the bankruptcy, his kidnapper accused him of lying and told him he was about to get his brains blown out.
As Pleterski desperately pleaded for his life, Akyeam-Pong counted down from 10 and then fired right beside his head — a terrifying mock execution captured on video.
Fearing he was truly going to be killed, Pleterski made up a story that his landlord Sandeep Gupta had his money. Pleterski was told to call him and say he needed his hidden assets. Gupta suspected a kidnapping and alerted police.
Burned with a cigarette
The next day, the agreed statement says Pleterski was taken to a junk yard where he was tortured — the kidnappers burned him with a cigarette and Akyeam-Pong cut pieces of flesh from Pleterski’s right knee and then threatened to cut more, saying “he’s not learning, I think we should cut his fingers off.”
They then proceeded to waterboard him twice. “Mr. Pleterski thought he was going to go unconscious. They only stopped when the water ran out,” the statement says.
After taking him to a Pickering apartment, Akyeam-Pong forced the obviously-injured Pleterski at gunpoint to record a video and parrot lines “confessing” to stealing from his victims. He was then moved to London, St. Catherines and Niagara — all while Akyeam-Pong threatened to hurt his siblings and parents if he didn’t come up with the money.
Pleterski was eventually taken back to Toronto where Akyeam-Pong released him at the Ritz-Carlton hotel with orders to get the funds.
Arrested at a Thornhill steak restaurant in April 2023 with a loaded semi-automatic handgun and $15,000 he’d just been paid by an alleged accomplice, the poor violent kidnapper says he’s been abused ever since.
His sentencing hearing continues Friday.