Ontario's Crypto King still jet-setting to U.K., Miami, and soon Australia despite bankruptcy

"I'll just pay everything in cash at the end."

That's what Ontario's self-proclaimed Crypto King Aiden Pleterski told a waitress at a Top Golf driving range in Miami earlier this month.

The interaction was part of a two-hour live stream Pleterski posted online. It's just one of several lengthy livestreams the bankrupt 25-year-old has run during international trips to the U.K., Miami and Los Angeles this fall.

A CBC Toronto review of those videos and his other social media posts found that Pleterski is travelling extensively — despite his ongoing bankruptcy proceeding — and plans to fly to Australia on another trip this weekend. The posts also show Pleterski driving a McLaren and a Lamborghini, offering to fly a woman from Sydney to Melbourne for a night while he's in Australia, and attending a boxing match in Manchester.

For more than a year now Pleterski's investors have been trying to track down more than $40 million they gave him to invest in cryptocurrency and foreign exchange. A Toronto-based bankruptcy proceeding that's being heard in Ontario Superior Court has recovered about $3 million for roughly 160 investors.

Bankruptcy proceedings are administered by a licensed insolvency trustee, a federally regulated professional, responsible for investigating the finances of a person or business that has gone bankrupt and administering their estate. 

In this case, the trustee is Rob Stelzer from Grant Thornton, an accounting firm. Stelzer's investigation found that Pleterski only invested about two per cent of investor funds while spending nearly $16 million on himself — renting private jets, going on vacations, adding luxury cars to his collection and leasing to a lakefront mansion prior to his bankruptcy.

Now Pleterski's recent travels are raising questions about how the Crypto King continues to fund his lifestyle while actively bankrupt — and what the bankruptcy proceeding can and can't do to investigate, and potentially prevent, his travel spending.

"He has access to funds," said Norman Groot, a fraud-recovery lawyer in Toronto.  

"It would seem that Mr. Pleterski is not deterred by anything that has gone on litigation-wise in the bankruptcy to continue on his reckless type of spending," he said.

Pleterski's lawyer, Micheal Simaan, did not respond to requests for comment about how his client is paying for his recent trips and lifestyle.

In an email, a spokesperson for Grant Thornton told CBC Toronto the trustee is aware of Pleterski's travels posts.

"Although there is no prohibition regarding the travel of a bankrupt, the nature and amount of travelling has been lavish," said spokesperson Lindsay Barnes.  

"The Trustee believes that this conduct should be taken into account by the Courts when considering any request Pleterski may make to be discharged from bankruptcy."