Ontario’s ‘Crypto King’ allegedly still hiding online income ahead of bankruptcy discharge hearing

Ontario's self-described "Crypto King" continues to hide income connected to online gaming and other internet services from his bankruptcy proceeding, according to the trustee overseeing it.

New court filings claim Aiden Pleterski sold $430,000 worth of virtual weapons for online games and started managing OnlyFans creators for a 40 per cent cut of their profits while bankrupt.

All of those funds were allegedly undisclosed, and will likely factor into whether Ontario Superior Court Justice William Black releases the 25-year-old from bankruptcy in a Toronto hearing Wednesday morning.

The trustee — the accounting firm Grant Thornton — wants a judge to deny Pleterski a discharge until he pays back more than $4.5 million in assets and funds it says he hasn't accounted for and pays back 30 per cent, roughly $9 million, of the money the bankruptcy proceedings found more than 150 creditors lost with him.

"These punitive measures will ensure that I am punished for the rest of my life for mostly immature actions on my part that had no ill intent," Pleterski said in an recent affidavit.

"Essentially, they want me to remain an undischarged bankrupt for the rest of my life."

Bankruptcy proceedings are administered by a licensed trustee, responsible for investigating the finances of a person or business that has gone bankrupt and for administering their estate.

CBC Toronto has reported extensively on Pleterski since the summer of 2022, when he was forced into bankruptcy by some of his investors. For nearly two years, his investors have been trying to track down up to $40 million they gave him to invest in cryptocurrencies and foreign exchanges — although only about $27 million in proven claims were admitted to the bankruptcy proceedings.

In May, Pleterski was charged with fraud and money laundering following an 18-month joint investigation between Durham Regional Police and the Ontario Securities Commission.

Police allege Pleterski solicited funds from investors, promising massive profits and guaranteeing no losses from their original investment. When investors couldn't access the money they provided to him, many reported the situation to police. None of the charges have been tested in court.

The bankruptcy trustee's investigation previously found that Pleterski only invested about two per cent of the investors' funds while spending nearly $16 million on himself — renting private jets, going on vacations, adding luxury cars to his collection and leasing to buy a lakefront mansion prior to his bankruptcy.

WATCH | Details of 18-month police investigation into 'Crypto King':

What we know so far about the fraud charges against Ontario’s ‘Crypto King’

2 months ago

Duration 9:18

Aiden Pleterski, Ontario’s self-proclaimed Crypto King, is accused of bilking investors out of more than $40M. Police in Whitby, Ont., spoke to the media on Thursday after investigators charged him and an associate with fraud. CBC’s Angelina King breaks down what we know so far about the ongoing case.

Pleterski says he invested funds

In his affidavit, Pleterski denies that he only invested about two per cent of the investors' funds.

Instead, he says that while investing in cryptocurrency he issued investor payouts by allowing new investors to take over the position of outgoing investors in his cryptocurrency accounts to avoid paying currency transaction fees.

"New investors took the place of these 'first investors' in the cryptocurrency accounts, and so their money was invested," Pleterski said. "lt was just invested without losing money as part of the currency exchange."

The trustee has repeatedly stated that Pleterski has not provided any evidence to support the claim that the value of cryptocurrency accounts ever exceeded the $2.4 million US deposited in 2021.

Pleterski also attributes the trustee's allegations that he has not co-operated with the bankruptcy proceeding to concerns for his safety which Pleterski says he raised and the trustee ignored.

One of Pleterski's investors, Akil Heywood, who'd been appointed one of the inspectors on the bankruptcy (a role that guides the bankruptcy investigation) was charged last year with Pleterski's alleged kidnapping, forcible confinement and assault in December 2022.

"lt is disappointing that reviewing [the trustee's] reports would not permit you to know what at least one of their inspectors did to me," said Pleterski, in his affidavit.

"That I had told them that I was concerned about it from the outset; and that they had ignored my concerns."

Heywood was removed as an inspector and was also charged with threatening a representative from Grant Thornton overseeing the bankruptcy. He previously told CBC Toronto he is innocent. The charges against him have not been tested in court.

In his affidavit, Pleterski also suggests the criminal court system is the place to for punitive measures against him if he's convicted, not the bankruptcy process.

Undisclosed Steam accounts

The trustee also found records of hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of transactions made through one of Pleterski's accounts on Steam — the online game storefront. The funds came from one of two accounts the trustee discovered through a court order. Pleterski had previously disclosed three Steam accounts.

Information on one of those accounts, "Tersk32," revealed that Pleterski changed its password, associated email address and added a new phone number on the same day the trustee obtained the court order, according to the trustee's court filing.

"It is apparent that this was Pleterski's further attempt to conceal these assets from disclosure," the trustee wrote.

The trade history for that account showed that from the time Pleterski was forced into bankruptcy until December 2023 he conducted over 100 trades, selling at least 153 "Steam skins," which are largely virtual weapons for online games.

"While bankrupt, Pleterski liquidated at least $430,312 in assets and did not make the proceeds available for his creditors," reads the trustee report.

It goes on to say the trustee believes Pleterski would have likely been paid those funds in cryptocurrency.

$6K for managing OnlyFans creators

The trustee also said it was informed by Durham Regional Police last month that Pleterski started providing account management services to OnlyFans users earlier this year, and that police connected the trustee to one of his clients.

The trustee says it was told Pleterski is charging clients 40 per cent of their earnings from the subscription-based site, which mostly features pornography, for his services and that this source of income was never disclosed to the trustee.

Bank records show Pleterski collected more than $2,200 from at least two clients by e-transfer from April to early June, according to the trustee's court filing. And the trustee said one of Pleterski's clients told them they'd paid Pleterski more than $6,000 between April and May this year.

"Most of these payments are not reflected in the [bank] statements," reads the report.

"The Trustee therefore believes that Pleterski maintains an undisclosed bank account with another financial institution which he uses to receive these e-transfers."

Pleterski will likely have to respond to these new allegations in court Wednesday morning.