In a recent incident, a US resident has received court punishment for making use of dark web and crypto asset to facilitate a henious crime. Reportedly, the accused is under the charges of planning the murder of her murder and making use of dark web in the due process.
According to media reports, a Nevada woman tried to pay a hitman on the dark web with Bitcoin to kill her ex-husband. Sources reveal that the accused is named Kristy Lynn Felkins and is aged 38 as stated in the investigation records.
Additionally, the recent incident is not the criminal record in the name of Felkins. According to the US Department of Justice, in March, she pleaded guilty to the use of “interstate commerce facilities in the commission of murder-for-hire.” At that time, she faced a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.
Before that, in 2016, she sent 12 Bitcoins, then worth $5,000, to the administrator of a site on the Tor network. The site called Besa Mafia, claimed to offer murder-for-hire services. According to CoinGecko, the Bitcoin she sent would be worth nearly $360,000 now.
Then, for four continuous months in 2016, Felkins texted the Besa Mafia website administrator. During this time, she provided specific information about how her ex-husband could be found, including his home address, vehicle, and what time he left for work.
According to the criminal complaint filed in 2020, Felkins wanted her ex-husband’s murder to look like an accident but didn’t agree to a $4,000 upcharge. After her payment was sent, the site’s administrator said a hitman was assigned and that her husband would be gone within a week.
However, no such murder took place as it was found that Besa Mafia was a scam site. To this, Felkins was never refunded Bitcoin she sent to the website, which is no longer in operation. Notably, the Justice Department in its press release did not disclose how it became aware of Felkins’ actions.
Following the ruling from the court, Felkins’ ex-husband Gabriel Scott of North Carolina said he was “very, very surprised” when he learned of the failed plot to murder him, describing Felkins as “a wonderful mother.” He told U.S. District Judge Troy L. Nunley that the divorce had been “as amicable as you could expect.” However, in his testimony to the court, Scott believed Felkins deserved some sort of sentence.
According to the investigation reports, Felkins had told the Besa Mafia administrator in 2016 that she was in a position to benefit from her ex-husband’s death. Quoting the statements from the investigation:
I stand to get his retirement, our house and possibly a large life insurance payout.
However, upon the ruling, Felkins said she’s thankful the person in charge of Besa Mafia didn’t deliver on the agreement they had established. Apparently, she was relieved that the person she contacted was a scam artist.
I’m very glad that no harm came to Gabe. I do thank God every day that the person I talked to was a scam artist.
Notably, this is not the first time, the dark web has been involved in such a heinous activity. In a similar case last year, a Mississippi woman was arrested and imprisoned when she paid $10,000 in Bitcoin to a purported hitman who turned out to be a federal law enforcement agent.
Similarly, another case reported by Todayq News had a similar pattern when William Fremming Nielsen, a senior district judge, sentenced the 56-year-old American Ronald Craig IIg to eight years in federal prison. The latter hired hitmen on the Dark Web to kidnap his wife and beat his former colleague and paid them over $60,000 worth of Bitcoin.
Notably, this shows us the increasing use of dark web and crypto assets by criminals to facilitate their criminal intents and an effort to escape the regulators radar. To this, countries have already taken note of the increasing pattern and have prioritised necessary action to tackle it.