When he arrived in London in late January 2022, Kyle Roche was riding high. At just 34 years old, he had established himself as one of the biggest players in the burgeoning field of cryptocurrency litigation. He boasted a law firm bearing his name, lawsuits filed against more than a dozen crypto companies and a huge verdict against the man who claimed to have invented Bitcoin.
Now a new opportunity beckoned. Two businessmen had flown Mr. Roche over from Miami to discuss investing in a new business venture he was forming. A waiting car whisked him from Heathrow Airport to meet the men in a plush townhouse in Mayfair.
That evening, Mr. Roche went to dinner with one of the men, who identified himself as Mauricio Andres Villavicencio de Aguilar. Mr. Villavicencio, who said he was from Argentina, had picked one of London’s fanciest restaurants, Jean-Georges in the Connaught hotel.
When he woke up the next morning, Mr. Roche says, he felt groggy. He couldn’t remember much aside from being pretty sure he had spotted Mr. Villavicencio’s business partner, a Norwegian named Christen Ager-Hanssen, lurking at a nearby table. The brain fog was odd because he didn’t think he’d had all that much to drink. As he flew back to Miami a few days later, Mr. Roche couldn’t shake the feeling that something was amiss.
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