The Italian businessman who was allegedly kidnapped and tortured in NYC for nearly 3 weeks, wasn’t always in distress during that period … according to a bizarre video of him cooking crack in an air fryer.

TMZ obtained a 20-second clip, which seemingly illustrates a much different picture of Michael Valentino Teofrasto Carturan‘s alleged captivity in the SoHo townhome where police say John Woeltz and William Duplessie tortured him for 17 days. In the video, Carturan appears to be tied around the chest to a wheelchair, but his hands are free and he’s smiling and joking with at least 3 other people in the room.

Carturan — whose face we’ve blurred because he’s an alleged victim — is fiddling with an air fryer on a table, and you can hear a male voice say, “You’re in a wheelchair cooking crack” … and someone else says, “That’s so whack.”

Here’s what’s puzzling about this video … metadata shows it was recorded May 11 at 1:45 AM ET at Woeltz’s Prince Street address. According to the police, Woeltz lured Carturan to his place on May 6, and held him until he managed to escape on May 23.

Our law enforcement sources tell us Carturan was tortured and forced to smoke crack while being filmed by his alleged captors … in order to blackmail him into turning over his password for his Bitcoin wallet worth millions. We’re told the suspects allegedly threatened to send the footage to Carturan’s investors if he didn’t provide the password, but Carturan still refused to cough it up. All of that aligns with this video.

What is unclear, though, is why Carturan would be in such a laughing and lighthearted mood 5 days after he was allegedly held. The video also reveals Woeltz and Duplessie were not the only ones in the townhome with Carturan. We’ve blurred the face of a man in a white sweater who was present — he’s not Woeltz or Duplessie — plus, there are at least 2 other male voices in the room.

Meanwhile, Woeltz and Duplessie are being held without bail on charges of kidnapping, assault, unlawful imprisonment and criminal possession of a weapon.

We reached out to attorneys for Duplessie and Woeltz. Duplessie’s attorney had no comment and so far no word back from Woeltz’s attorney.