New York (AP) – New York police investigate two detectives who worked security in a high -end town house in Manhattan where a man says he was kidnapped and tortured For weeks by two cryptographic investors who wanted to steal his bitcoin, said a city official on Thursday.
One of the detectives is used for the security detail of the mayor Eric Adams and would have picked up the victim at a local airport and brought him to the townhouse, said the manager. It is not immediately clear if the other detective, who is a drug officer, has a link with the incident.
The detectives were put on amended leave pending the outcome of the investigation, according to the official, who was informed of the case and spoke anonymously to the Associated Press because they are not authorized to discuss the internal investigation.
It is not uncommon for NYPD members to carry out private safety work outside of their employment from the city, but they must receive prior approval. At this stage, the manager said, the ministry examines if the officers received this approval.
The Adams office confirmed that one of the detectives provides security details for the Democrat, but said that the mayor had no knowledge of what the officer does during his personal time.
“Each city employee should follow the law, including our officers, both in service,” said the mayor’s office in a statement sent by email. “We are disturbed by these allegations.”
In response to an email survey, a NYPD spokesperson confirmed that two members had been placed in modified service on Wednesday.
A spokesman for the union representing NYPD detectives did not immediately respond to an email asking for a comment on Thursday.
Crypto-investors John Woeltz And William Duplessie were charged in the case. Their lawyers refused to comment.
The authorities alleged that on May 6, the two men attracted the victim, whom they knew personally, in a chic town house in the Soho district of Manhattan by threatening to kill his family.
The man, a 28 -year -old Italian national who was not appointed by civil servants, said that he was then held captive for 17 days, while the two investors touched him with electric wires, forced him to smoke a Crack pipe and swing him at one point from a five -story staircase.
He finally agreed to put the password from his computer on Friday morning, then managed to flee the house while his kidnappers were going to recover the aircraft.
The investigation into the officers began, incidentally, on the same day, Adams led a cryptographic convention in Las Vegas, where he described New York as the Bitcoin capital of the country.
