Since at least 2016, the group had run a stable of sites on the dark web, including Sicilian Hitmen and Yakuza Mafia, offering bogus murder-for-hire services. Zhou was not aware at the time of her scheme that the Website was a scam operated by a third party and there was no actual hitman for hire. But he was doing that by inciting murder, by egging criminals on and by spreading lies – about hitmen, about other people and about the dark web. “If you intend to report hitmen scams, you are basically siding up with those would be murderers, helping them to avoid scams and traps and helping them to find other means to do their kill,” Yura/Barbosa wrote.
- …What has been ordered is a hit that looks like an accident because the customer in this case feels that he or she'd become very quickly a suspect.
- “What stood out the most about this case was the foolishness of the suspect … attempting to hire a hit man from a website,” Peterson says.
- While it is difficult to determine the exact number of dark web hitmen operating at any given time, it is clear that the demand for their services exists.
- “As alleged, the defendant took affirmative steps to hire a hit man to carry out the ruthless killing of the wife of her romantic partner,” said Peace.
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Monteiro started scrolling through messages he had cached from Yura’s previous sites. Some of our contract killers might refuse to kill women but we have plenty of other contract killers that are willing to kill women.” Yura sometimes goes by Barbosa or Juan, but Monteiro believes they are all the same scammer, who likely lives in Romania.
I can assure you that I did not go to the online web to hire a hit man or anyone to kill Alexis. Digging through that treasure trove, Lisa believes she's unearthed a few gold nuggets – including Yura's likely password from one of his early murder-for-hire sites. We were already there to interview a self-styled cybercrime researcher named Chris Monteiro, who'd been monitoring Yura and his hitman sites for more than three years. It was another cold and clinical Minnesota hit order that triggered "48 Hours"' original dark web murder for hire investigation. She says the murder-for-hire sites are all about making big money, and that she found millions of dollars of profits in an online account she believes is linked to Yura.
The Site’s Owner Turns Murderous ‘clients’ Over To Police
Even after the raids, it’s still unclear whether this was the work of one person who grew an operation to the point it needed support from a team, or if it was always a larger effort. Since then, Monteiro estimates that around 25 arrests have been made of individuals who have paid to have people killed through the website. Some of the names on that list now belong to homicide victims, killed by the person who originally made the order. He published a number of blog posts exposing the operation, which angered Yura enough to hire someone to threaten him personally. Husbands ordered hits on their wives, business partners sought assassins for their colleagues, a man who lost money on a sports betting website asked to murder the customer service rep who failed to return it to him, and a predator paid to arrange the death of a 14 year-old boy. Five men believed to be behind the web’s most notorious murder for hire scheme were arrested in Romania this week, in part of an operation aimed at putting an end to the infamous dark web scam.
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There's armored police busting in. Again, these websites can't be verified. As Allwine's murder trial approached in January 2018, authorities were winding down their investigation. He hired defense attorney Kevin DeVore. Stephen Allwine was arrested on Jan. 17, 2017, on murder charges. It is a website for married people seeking extramarital affairs.
After sending payment, Zhou provided a detailed description of Victim-1, including her home, her work schedule, and the best times to target Victim-1, so that Victim-1’s husband would have an alibi for the murder. Little did she know, the website she allegedly thought she was using to solicit a hitman was a farce, and the crimes of which she is accused soon caught up to her,” stated HSI New York Special Agent in Charge Arvelo. This afternoon, at the federal courthouse in Brooklyn, Yue Zhou is scheduled to be arraigned on an indictment charging her with murder-for-hire. Whether you're interested to hear stories, conduct an interview or simply need such services, there are ways to get in touch with people.
Dive Teams, Several Law Enforcement Agencies Search For Weapon In Westmoreland County Murder
Although many dark web sites are scams, Alexis knew someone out there wanted her dead. When Alexis arrived at the police station, she got stunning news. Alexis had every reason to be worried because of something that had happened just months earlier, when out of nowhere, the police had called her. Van Sant's 2018 report, "Click for a Killer," exposed about 20 active murder plots.
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Yura had also set up a galaxy of micro-websites on the regular web, which spread the word about Besa Mafia under the pretence of denunciating it. In the following months, several videos of balaclava-clad thugs firing guns and talking up Yura’s assassination websites would pop up online. He then asked him to enact and video a fake murder, with the help of a friend and a replica gun.
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But yeah, it’s still going on. There are some other sites out there doing this, but I believe he’s the most successful financially, the most searched and optimized, has the highest traffic, the highest number of users. But yeah, he just thought there was a niche for a believable, effective darknet murder scam to be lucrative, and he’s not wrong. It was — had it taken over at the time. He told me that he saw a niche for doing believable darknet scams. The website continues to operate and for all I know, continues to scam people out of money and continues to enrich Romanian scammers.
- And what the messages revealed was that there were no real hitmen.
- Once there, users were asked to submit their target, information about how and when they would like them killed, and to pay a fee, typically $5,000-20,000, in Bitcoin.
- Another site, which appears to be operated by different people, and claims to serve the Russian region primarily, is fully operational.
- Plenty of sites there are neutral or even helpful forums, blogs, privacy tools.
- But there was no way for them or even the police to take this website down, since they don’t have enough information to know who’s running it or where it’s hosted.
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Over the next two weeks, "48 Hours" reached out to the man four times, requesting an on-camera interview at CBS News. I hit your camera and you did with your own hands. And "48 Hours" discovered an email address that included "gun" and "killa" connected to the man Lisa found in New York City.
That's the only person that I know. Dow immediately alerts San Luis Obispo police, including the supervisor of detectives, Lt. John Bledsoe. …What has been ordered is a hit that looks like an accident because the customer in this case feels that he or she'd become very quickly a suspect. Chris Monterio has had access to Yura's database — he knows everything about Yura — and it's time we ask him an important question. When he saw they were listening to "48 Hours," he started passing us new target information from Yura's sites.
“Fortunately, his plot was discovered before anyone was killed or injured.” The Daily Dot reached out to the Secret Service to ask whether the agency was aware of the apparent scam site but did not receive a reply by press time. We don’t have much time left. The site’s anonymous author goes on to claim that they have the “right skills,” the “right acquaintances,” and a “plan” to carry out the assassination. I want to kill Trump.“
One of them, a young Californian named Beau Brigham, had paid less than $5 toward a hit on his stepmother. People visit the dark underworld of the Internet—places of pornography, crime, and violence—territory they would never explore in the real world. During the back-and-forth on one recent order, the user Happynewyear asked Yura if he could send hit men to Hawaii.
If someone wants to get rid of someone else, they’ll most likely find a local hitman in the underworld and pay in cash, simple as that. You can find plenty of ads for hitmen, many of them authentic, some of them scams. While there are, indeed, many cases of murder for hire over the dark web, the truth is this is a very sensitive topic. When the mission is complete, the money will be released to the hitman.
