Salt Lake City girl tried to hire a hitman for bitcoins

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The District Court of Utah sentenced a 23-year-old local resident to 78 months in prison in federal prison for trying to hire a hitman through the darknet to kill her ex-boyfriend's new girlfriend.

Krista Renae Stone of Salt Lake City pleaded guilty to attempting to organize a contract killing. In addition to the real prison term, Stone was sentenced to three years of probation - the girl will have to regularly report to the police.

According to prosecutors, in March 2023, Stone found a killer on the darknet and paid him $5000 in bitcoins for the man to commit murder. The young woman provided him with a detailed description of the victim, a photo, an address - and described in detail the process of how the murder should be committed.

"It was a brazen attempt on the life of another person. Contract killings violate the sanctity of life, turning it into a commodity, and society becomes vulnerable to further acts of violence. If law enforcement had not discovered the darknet platform that Stone was using and had not conducted a large-scale investigation, the situation would have had a sad outcome," said Utah County Attorney Trina Higgins.

In July, the NYPD arrested a woman who offered a killer bitcoins and sexual favors for the murder of a former lover and his entire family. Fortunately, the contract murder did not take place either. In the same month, a Nevada woman went to jail after trying to take the life of her ex-husband for 12 bitcoins.

 

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The Glasgow High Court found 41-year-old Martin Reedie guilty of trying to organize the murder of local prosecutor Darren Harty for bitcoins through the darknet.

From May 29, 2021 to September 15, 2022, the man, according to the court, created several accounts on the darknet platform. He paid the killer $5,071.24 ($6,684) in bitcoins, instructing him to shoot the prosecutor and providing information about the potential whereabouts of the victim.

During his testimony, Reedie called himself an avenger and an "evil Jesus". Once the men met in a pub owned by the family of the prosecutor Harty in the town of Cautbridge, North Lanarkshire. According to the accused, he planned the murder to expose organized crime. "Evil Jesus" believed that if the prosecutor was killed, the public would be able to find out about the money laundering that Reedie claimed was taking place in the pub.

According to Harty's own testimony, there was no illegal activity in the pub. The future prosecutor worked in this institution about ten years ago, when he was studying at the university. In addition, the defendant's father told the court that Reedie had spent some time in a psychiatric clinic and was characterized by paranoid behavior.

 

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The District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee sentenced 48-year-old Knoxville resident Melody Sasser to eight years in prison for attempting to organize a contract killing on the dark web.

According to the ruling of Judge Thomas A. Varlan, the defendant must serve 100 months in federal prison, after which Sasser will be on parole for three years. In addition, the woman must pay compensation to the would-be victim in the amount of $ 5,390.

In 2023, the Department of Homeland Security received information from foreign law enforcement agencies about a possible conspiracy to contract kill a resident of Prattville, Alabama. It turned out that Sasser tried to hire a hitman through the darknet platform Online Killers Market to take the life of the wife of her friend, whom Sasser met on an online dating site.

As part of the plea agreement, Sasser said that she provided the killer with photos and information about the victim's location. Sasser asked that the murder look like an accident or a drug overdose so that the police would not investigate the case for a long time. The woman paid the killer $10,000 in cryptocurrency.

Fortunately, Sasser's plan failed and the planned assassination did not take place. The criminal was arrested, and her house was searched. Law enforcement agencies found a list with several darknet sites where the killers promoted their services, as well as a wad of US dollars under a note indicating the Bitcoin address.