(Bloomberg) -- Aiden Pleterski, the self-proclaimed “Crypto King” who collected millions of dollars from investors, only to spend it on luxury goods, has been arrested on fraud charges in Canada. 

Pleterski, who lives in the Toronto suburb of Whitby, Ontario, was charged with fraud and laundering the proceeds of crime and held for a bail hearing, according to a statement Wednesday from the provincial securities regulator. Another man, Colin Murphy of Oshawa, Ontario, was charged with one count of fraud. 

The arrest marks the latest twist in the saga of Pleterski, whose online reputation as a trading savant prompted investors to entrust him with C$41.5 million ($30.5 million) during the crypto boom of 2021 and early 2022, on the expectation he could make them as rich as he was by buying digital assets. 

But a subsequent bankruptcy proceeding found that all the hyper cars, rare watches and private jet flights he was pictured with on social media — which he used as evidence of his financial prowess — were really paid for with investor money. Pleterski invested just a fraction of it, and in the end only about C$3.15 million was recoverable for investors through bankruptcy, according to an October filing.

The story took a further twist when Pleterski was kidnapped for three days in December 2022, with one of the kidnappers later revealed as a former investor of Pleterski’s who had taken an active role in the bankruptcy proceedings. Five men were charged in the kidnapping. 

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