NBA star flees $8M mansion amid threats from ‘Crypto King’ victims

Canadian basketball star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander says he was forced to flee his $8.4 million mansion after a threatening visit from a stranger looking for Ontario’s self-proclaimed Crypto King Aiden Pleterski.

As reported by CBC, the 25-year-old athlete and his girlfriend were only in their new home a matter of days before a threatening visitor knocked on their door demanding to know Pleterski’s whereabouts.

It was only when Gilgeous-Alexander’s girlfriend called the police to report the visit that they discovered the house had a history of similar incidents, including a threat to burn the property down. Two days after moving in, the pair upped sticks.

Within a month, Gilgeous-Alexander’s had filed a lawsuit against the house’s sellers, claiming that they misrepresented the property by neglecting to mention these previous visits and threats from individuals rating to track down the alleged fraudster.

In the claim, Gilgeous-Alexander’s lawyers say, “If the history of threatening visits to the property, and ongoing risk of same, was disclosed, then no reasonable person looking at properties of that type, quality, and price would purchase it.”

‘Crypto King’ former owner says he was kidnapped

Aiden Pleterski, the self-proclaimed ‘crypto king,’ is currently undergoing a bankruptcy case as investors attempt to recover $40 million worth of crypto and foreign exchange investments. 

Bankruptcy reports say he invested just 2% of investor funds while spending roughly $16 million on himself, buying private jets, vacations, and luxury cars. Pleterksi claims to have been kidnapped by five disgruntled investors, one of which lost $740,000.

Read more: YouTuber finds abandoned mansion and Bitcoin mine of ‘crypto millionaire’

Pleterski previously rented the Ontario Mansion before moving out between June and July 2022. An employee of his landlord then took on the tenancy. According to bankruptcy proceedings, Pleterski’s landlord claims random people were coming to the house every day “looking for Aiden, to the point where [our employee] wanted to have security himself there.” 

Gilgeous-Alexander’s lawyers argue that these reports help their lawsuit. In addition, they say Pleterski’s alleged kidnapping shows these visitors “were not making idle threats.”

Lawyers representing sellers of the property told CBC that its clients deny any misrepresentation to the purchaser. In their defense, they say only four people visited the house after Peterski left and nobody was threatening. 

Because of this, they argue they had no obligation to disclose the visits and that, despite Pleterski’s alleged abduction, people inquiring about the former tenant can be viewed as an “entirely normal occurrence.”

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