A former doctor will be imprisoned for 8 years for trying to hire a killer from the “dark web”.

It all started in February 2021, when a visitor to a website for ordering killer services under the nickname Scar215 addressed the administrator of the site in a personal letter with a desire to order an attack on his colleague. The customer sent full information about the victim (name, address and photo) and an amount of about USD 2,000 (approximately the same amount of money was used to buy the assassination of the colleague).

This was not the last order from the anonymous person. In early April 2021, Scar215 sent letters to three administrators of similar sites with a detailed description of his order. He wanted to order the kidnapping of his wife because she had started the process of divorce from him. The text of the task stated that she had to be kidnapped and held for one week, the victim had to be injected with heroin twice a day to induce addiction, and the task was accompanied by a list of goals for which the mercenary would receive a “nice bonus”. If we count all the “bonuses” and the initial amount specified in the text of the task, we will get the amount of USD 60,000, which is the amount for which the customer planned to organize the “re-education” of his wife. During the discussion of the details, the customer allowed the mercenary to use any methods to achieve the goal, and the goal was to return the wife to the customer and complete the divorce procedure. Scar215 paid for his two orders with bitcoin, probably to remain completely anonymous.

All the illegal actions could not go unnoticed. While analyzing the blockchain, the FBI noticed some strange transactions, and they contacted the exchange (Coinbase, because it was from an account registered on this exchange that strange transactions for a rather large amount were made) to obtain information on these transactions, which led them to a man named Ronald Craig Ilg, who lived in Spokane, Washington. Ronald was then detained. In the morning, on April 11, 2021, he was interrogated, during which Ronald confessed that he intended to hire killers to kill himself, but investigators did not believe him, so a search was conducted at the suspect’s home. The police were interested in a safe in the man’s bedroom. Access to it was provided by the owner of the house. Inside the safe, investigators found a lot of records and notes. On April 13, 2021, using the found records, law enforcement agencies gained access to the Scar215 user account on the dark web, as well as to correspondence with administrators of sites providing “specific” services.

Ronald Craig Ilg confessed to ordering the attacks on his colleague and ex-wife and was sentenced on August 10, 2022: 8 years in prison in a general regime colony. If you think that’s all, you’re wrong, on January 24, 2023, the court ordered the prisoner to pay the victims compensation in the amount of $125,000.

After being arrested, New Jersey resident John-Michael Musbach pleaded guilty to attempting to hire a hitman from DarkWeb to kill a minor.

According to the information provided, 31-year-old New Jersey resident John-Michael Musbach transferred about $20,000 in BTC to the account of a fraudulent website for hiring killers. He was trying to hire a killer to kill a 14-year-old boy whom he had sexually abused the day before. According to the police department, in the summer of 2015, John-Michael conducted sexual correspondence with a minor (the victim was only 13 years old at the time) using the Internet Relay Chat (IRC) resource.

This could not go unnoticed, so the victim’s parents found out about it and immediately contacted the police. On March 31, 2016, the police arrested Michael, and on October 11, he confessed to having sexual relations with the victim.

On February 9, 2018, Michael was sentenced to 2 years of suspended imprisonment. The case would have been closed, but in 2019, an anonymous informant contacted HSI agents. The anonymous informant reported that in 2016, a user under the nickname agentisai wanted to use the services of a DarkNet site to order the services of a killer.

The anonymous person shared private correspondence from which it became known that in May 2016, agentisai asked the site administration whether a minor could be a target, and received a response that age was not a problem for the order. After receiving a positive response to his request, agentisai transferred 40 bitcoins to the site’s account and placed an order to kill a 14-year-old boy. During the order confirmation, the administrator asked for another $5,000, saying that this way his order would be fulfilled by a more professional killer. After that, agentisai wanted to deactivate his order, but was refused. The site administrator threatened to provide all the information to law enforcement agencies if agentisai did not pay another 22 BTC. For this amount, the administration promised to delete the customer’s account.

The agents reported this information to the Coinbase exchange, as it was the exchange that was used to pay for the murder order. The exchange indicated that this transaction was made from an account registered to John-Michael.

John-Michael was arrested on August 13, 2020, and pleaded guilty on February 2, 2023. U.S. District Judge Joseph H. Rodriguez has scheduled his sentencing for June 13, 2023. Michael faces a 10-year prison sentence.