An Italian businessman was held captive and tortured for more than two weeks in a luxury Manhattan townhouse in a horrifying attempt to extract his Bitcoin password, New York police said. The suspect, 37-year-old cryptocurrency investor John Woeltz, was arrested on Friday after the victim, a 28-year-old man, managed to escape and flagged down a police officer, as per a report in The New York Times.

According to law enforcement sources, the victim had arrived in New York City from Italy on May 6 to meet Woeltz, with whom he had previous business dealings. Once at the townhouse — a rented SoHo residence costing between $30,000 to $40,000 a month — Woeltz allegedly seized the man’s passport and devices.

He then began a weeklong campaign to torture the victim.

Torture and threats over crypto

The man told police how he was tortured, claiming he was bound with electric cords, shocked while his feet were in water, pistol-whipped, and cut with a chainsaw. Authorities said he was also forced to take cocaine and had an Apple AirTag placed around his neck to track him if he tried to escape, according to a report in the New York Post.

Woeltz and his accomplices allegedly took Polaroid photos of the torture, including one showing the man tied to a chair with a gun pointed at his head. Police believe the images were intended to pressure the victim or his family to release the Bitcoin password.

The victim had a visible wound on his arm believed to be from the chainsaw. He eventually fled the townhouse on Friday, believing he was going to be killed that day. He was taken to Bellevue Hospital for treatment.

Multiple arrests and charges

Woeltz was arrested later that day wearing a robe and handcuffs. “This is definitely the strangest thing I’ve seen in my time here,” said photographer Ciaran Tully, who sells work across the street from the townhouse, to NY Post.

A local jewellery vendor added, “I knew there was something weird going on, I just assumed they were shooting porn or something. I couldn’t have guessed all this.”

On Saturday, Woeltz was arraigned in Manhattan criminal court and pleaded not guilty to four felony charges, including kidnapping with intent to collect ransom, assault, unlawful imprisonment, and criminal possession of a weapon. Judge Eric Schumacher ordered him held without bail and said Woeltz must surrender his passport due to his access to a private jet and helicopter.