A 38-year-old man was kidnapped by six men who held him for 10 days and robbed him of more than $6,000, police said Friday.
The victim just before 5 a.m. on Friday called 911 after driving to NewYork-Presbyterian Queens.
He told responding officers, followed by detectives that on July 8 he had dinner with a friend on Long Island, with the friend driving him back to his car, parked in Flushing at 31st Rd. and Union St.
When the friend left, the victim said, he was set upon by six men, who tased him in the chest, then drove him in their car to an unknown location, according to police.
He was handcuffed at some point, police said, as the suspects tried to extract money from him. In the end, he told police he gave them about 900,000 yen, equivalent to more than $6,000, both wired from a bank account and from a cryptocurrency account.
It was not clear why the suspects targeted the victim or how wealthy they believed he was.
Police said that on Friday morning the suspects dropped the victim off back at his car, after which he drove to the hospital, though he decided once there that he did not require medical treatment.
In May, an Italian man escaped a downtown Manhattan apartment where he was tortured and held against his will for several weeks as his captors tried to get him to give up the password for his bitcoin account, police said.
Cryptocurrency investor John Woeltz and his associate, William Duplessie, have been charged in that case.