Fraud trial: 'Crypto King' Pleterski declares innocence in closing address

Aiden Pleterski told the jury he is innocent at his Toronto fraud trial, while Crown prosecutors called him a thief who stole $36M from investors.

'Crypto King' Pleterski tells jury he is innocent as Crown labels him a thief

Aiden Pleterski addressed a Toronto jury for the first time at his fraud trial Wednesday morning, delivering a brief closing statement in which he declared himself innocent, cbc.ca reports.

"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."

The 27-year-old self-styled "Crypto King" represented himself throughout the trial, cross-examining only the first of 14 Crown witnesses and declining to call evidence in his defence or to testify on his own behalf. On multiple occasions, when Justice Shaun Nakatsuru asked whether he had questions for witnesses, Pleterski told the court he did not know what to ask and, in at least one instance, said he needed a lawyer.

Pleterski faces a charge of fraud over $5,000. The Crown dropped a second charge of money laundering against him at the close of its case. He was charged following a lengthy police investigation in May 2024.

Crown: 'He was a thief'

Before Pleterski addressed the court, Crown prosecutor Akshay Aurora delivered a roughly 90-minute closing statement in which he rejected the "Crypto King" label outright.

"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.

Aurora argued that none of the investors' funds were ever directed to the trading platform FXChoice, as specified in their investment contracts. Instead, he said, Pleterski used the money to repay other investors, purchase vehicles, travel on private jets and pay off 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."

Forensic audit: $36.3M received, none sent to trading platform

A senior forensic accountant from the Ontario Securities Commission, Albert Ciorma, had earlier testified that investors provided Pleterski with more than $36.3 million in total and that none of those funds were ever transferred to FXChoice.

According to Ciorma's audit, Pleterski spent approximately $5.6 million on luxury vehicles, $4.9 million on credit card bills, $870,000 on travel and private jet flights, and $598,000 on security. He also transferred nearly $3.7 million to his parents and withdrew $609,000 in cash advances from a credit card. Those expenditures together exceed $16.3 million. A further $16.1 million was paid out to other investors from the same pool of funds, Ciorma said.

In his closing, Aurora walked jurors through financial summaries Ciorma had prepared, focusing on accounts linked to roughly half of the dozen investors who testified at trial. In one example, investor Sacha Singh provided Pleterski with $1.3 million to invest; the money accounted for nearly all the funds in the relevant account, and Singh subsequently received back $700,000 drawn from that same account — his own money returned to him as if it were a gain.

Aurora said the pattern repeated across multiple accounts: investor funds deposited, then quickly withdrawn to pay other investors, settle credit card balances, or cover the costs of 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," the prosecutor told the jury.

Phantom $311M fund

The Crown's closing also addressed Pleterski's trading activity in cryptocurrency and foreign exchange during the period of the alleged fraud, between July 2020 and July 2022. Aurora said every investment account Pleterski held generated losses and that only $4,000 entered any of his accounts from cryptocurrency or foreign exchange sources.

Central to the Crown's case was a purported $311 million fund held in a FXChoice account. Pleterski had sent screenshots and a video of the account balance to investors who were pressing for information about their money in the spring of 2022. Witnesses testified about receiving those materials, and the jury was shown a photograph of one investor, Mitchell Learning, holding his phone displaying a screenshot of an account balance exceeding $311 million.

The jury also heard evidence that the email account linked to the FXChoice account had subsequently been deleted. An audio recording played at trial captured Pleterski telling investors at a meeting that the $311 million fund had never existed.

"Who would delete a $300 million account? You wouldn't even delete a $300 account," Aurora said in his closing, underscoring the point for jurors.

The case now moves toward jury deliberations following the conclusion of closing statements.

Source: Google News CA — Crime (EN)