While an inordinate number of Bitcoin exchange executives are facing increased violence, and even death (see here and here), one exchange CEO is on trial in the Philippines for the opposite – namely, allegedly killing his girlfriend.
Troy Woody Jr., apparently the CEO of an exchange in the US called Luxr LLC, was arrested in Manila with another person named Mir Islam, and charged with the murder of 23-year-old Tomi Masters. Mir Islam allegedly has a criminal record from hacking.
On December 23, 2018, Ms. Masters was found in a large wooden box in a Philippines river, naked, bound with duct tape and with a plastic bag over her head. Originally from Indiana, she was in the Philippines with Woody.
Woody and Islam allegedly put Ms. Masters’ body in a large box in a taxi and dumped it into a river from a bridge. The taxi driver went to the police after the incident because he was suspicious.
Woody has allegedly admitted dumping a box in a river in the Philippines but said the box is not his but he has changed his story, allegedly, as to his role in her death. Both suspects claim to know nothing about her death and both say they just randomly agreed to hire a taxi, loaded a heavy box in the taxi that was chilling in Woody’s apartment, and agreed to pay the taxi driver to take them to a bridge over a river and during the ride, threw a heavy box from a bridge into a river for no reason, not knowing what was in it.
According to this article, two days before her death, Ms. Masters removed all references to Woody on social media and allegedly booked a flight to return to the US without him.
A month before his girlfriend was found dead, Woody started what appears to be a Twitter fight against his friend, well-known hacker CosmoTheGod formerly of UG Nazi (see here and here) and allegedly the CEO of a company called Path Network, whom Woody accused of spending customers’ money to fund a lavish lifestyle. Both Islam and Woody were allegedly also part of UG Nazi. There is a Vancouver connection – Path Network announced work that it did for the TOR accessible, Vancouver-based ICO digital currency exchange called CoinPayments.
Woody had his own lavish lifestyle promoted on social media, making purchases of diamonds, watches and other luxury items bought with proceeds of Bitcoin transactions. His Instagram account is here.
A good background story is here. Woody is incarcerated at Bicutan in the Philippines, a remand prison for foreigners that is well-known for its inhumane prison conditions.
Woody claims that he had significant sums in Bitcoin and that the FBI seized it.