Cryptocurrency investor John Woeltz has been charged with two counts of second-degree assault and one charge each of kidnapping, imprisonment and criminal possession of a firearm after police claim he kidnapped and tortured an Italian tourist in New York City.

The New York assault is the latest addition in a growing list of violent attempts to steal crypto through physical coercion.

Crypto trader John Woeltz, accused of kidnapping a 28-year-old Italian man, repeatedly shocked his victim with electric wires, held him upside down from the top of a staircase, and threatened to