'Crypto King' Aiden Pleterski addresses jury at his fraud trial for first time, says he's innocent
Self-described "Crypto King" Aiden Pleterski addressed the jury for the first time at his Toronto fraud trial, thanking them, in his brief closing statement Wednesday morning.
Prosecutor calls Pleterski 'a thief' who stole investor funds to spend on himself in closing statement
Nicole Brockbank · CBC News
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Self-described "Crypto King" Aiden Pleterski addressed the jury for the first time at his Toronto fraud trial, thanking them, in his brief closing statement Wednesday morning.
"I am the least qualified person here to give a closing statement," Pleterski said in Ontario Superior Court.
"However, that being said, I am innocent of these charges. That is why I pled not guilty. Had I not been forced to represent myself, that would have been proven. That's all I have to say."
Pleterski represented himself at his trial, where he only cross-examined the first of 14 witnesses the Crown called and decided not to call evidence in his defence or to testify himself. When asked by Justice Shaun Nakatsuru whether he had questions for several of the witnesses, he told the court he didn't know what to ask and, in one case, said that he needed a lawyer.
The 27-year-old is accused of fraud over $5,000. At the end of the Crown's case, they dropped a second charge of money laundering against Pleterski. He was charged after a lengthy police investigation in May 2024.
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Pleterski was no 'Crypto King': Crown
Before Pleterski addressed the court, Crown prosecutor Akshay Aurora gave his roughly 90-minute closing statement.
"Mr. Pleterski was no 'Crypto King.' Far from it. As it turns out he was no king at all. He was a thief. A thief who stole investor money and used it as he pleased. A thief who stole investor money using calculated lies," Aurora told the jury.
"As you've seen, he burned through that money … he lived his best life, all while his investors pleaded for updates on their money, only to be ignored."
Crown prosecutor Akshay Aurora, seen in this courtroom sketch, delivered a roughly 90-minute closing statement at Pleterski's fraud trial on Wednesday. (Pam Davies/CBC)
Aurora provided an overview of the Crown's evidence in his closing statement, emphasizing that none of the investors' funds went into the trading platform, FXChoice, on their investment contracts. Instead, the prosecutor said Pleterski used it to pay back other investors, buy cars, fly on private jets and rack up credit card bills.
"The truth, members of the jury, are in the numbers, and the numbers do not lie," Aurora said.
"The numbers tell us Mr. Pleterski used investor money as if it was his own to fund his lavish lifestyle."
Earlier in Pleterski's trial, a senior forensic accountant who reviewed his financial records testified that investors provided Pleterski with more than $36.3 million and none of those funds were ever sent to FXChoice.
Instead, Albert Ciorma from the Ontario Securities Commission said his forensic audit found Pleterski spent about $5.6 million on luxury vehicles, $4.9 million on credit card bills, $870,000 on travel and private jets and $598,000 on security.
WATCH | Court hears audio recording of self-described 'Crypto King':
'Crypto King' admits $300M account never existed in audio recording played at trial
October 26|
Duration
2:24
The Crown closed its case by playing a three-hour audio recording of a meeting between the accused Aiden Pleterski, a lawyer and three investors. The jury heard from a retired police officer who was present at the meeting and gave Pleterski $450,000 to invest.Pleterski also gave nearly $3.7 million to his parents and took $609,000 in cash advances from a credit card, Ciorma said.
Altogether, those expenses total more than $16.3 million. Pleterski also paid out another $16.1 million to investors from the funds he received, according to Ciorma.
Investor paid back own money
In his closing, Aurora walked jurors through some of the financial summaries Ciorma created of Pleterski's accounts as they related to about half of the dozen investors who testified at trial.
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In one case, the Crown showed how investor and witness Sacha Singh provided Pleterski with $1.3 million to invest, how that money made up almost all the funds in the account and that Singh was later paid back $700,000 of his own money from the same account.
Sacha Singh testified remotely by Zoom at Pleterski fraud trial on Oct. 14. (Pam Davies/CBC)
The prosecutor's examples also showed hundreds of thousands of dollars of investor funds being deposited in Pleterski's various accounts, only to be quickly withdrawn to pay other investors, credit card bills and go toward cars and a luxury home.
"None of the money went to MyFXChoice. You've seen it. Each time, Mr. Pleterski just uses the money as if it was his own," said Aurora in reference to these accounts.
Pleterski's investments were all failures
The Crown's closing also highlighted details on Pleterski's limited trading in cryptocurrency and foreign exchange over the course of the alleged fraud between July 2020 and July 2022.
"Every single investment account of Mr. Pleterski's is a failure and only generates losses," said Aurora. "$4,000 is all that comes into his account from any form of cryptocurrency or foreign exchange source."
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'Crypto King' Aiden Pleterski spent investors' money on exotic cars, private jet flights: Crown
Over the course of the trial, the jury heard about a purported $311 million fund in a FXChoice account — and how Pleterski provided screenshots and a video of it to concerned investors worried about their money in the spring of 2022.
Earlier this month, the jury in Pleterski's trial was shown this photo of Mitchell Learning holding his own phone with a screenshot the investor testified Pleterski sent him of Pleterski's trading account with a balance of more than $311 million. (Ontario Superior Court of Justice)
It came up in the testimony of several witnesses, alongside the screenshots and videos. Including one of Pleterski's email account, showing the FXChoice account where the money was supposed to be, had been deleted. The jury also heard an audio recording of a meeting with investors where Pleterski admitted the $311 million fund never existed.
'Every dollar was a decision he made'
"Who would delete a $300 million account? You wouldn't even delete a $300 account. It's clear that Mr. Pleterski was deleting that account because his 'investment scheme' was going to be unravelled … that it was going to be exposed," said Aurora in his closing statement.
"At no point, no point in the history of this account, was there $300 million, not even close. The highest this account was at was at $12,000."
The Crown also emphasized Pleterski knew he was deceiving investors from the beginning.
Ontario Superior Court Justice Shaun Nakatsuru is presiding over Pleterski's trial. (Pam Davies/CBC)
"Mr. Pleterski was the architect of this scheme. He controlled everything," Aurora told the jury.
"Every dollar spent was a decision he made. He was the architect. It would be impossible to say he did not know what he was doing."
As a result, the prosecutor told the jury Pleterski is guilty of fraud over $5,000.
Nakatsuru began giving his instructions to the jury late Wednesday morning and is expected to continue into the afternoon.
The judge told the jury they wouldn't start their deliberations until Thursday.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Nicole Brockbank is a reporter for CBC Toronto's Enterprise Unit. She digs up, researches and reports GTA-focused investigative and enterprise stories. nicole.brockbank@cbc.ca
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