Usually, Dark Web is used to share sensitive documents of a person or an organization. But in a recent case, a man in Singapore hired a hitman on this platform to kill his former lover's boyfriend. The accused was jailed on Wednesday, September 18 but it never stopped there and more Singaporeans have been turning to "hitman-for-hire" sites.
The convict, 47-year-old Allen Vincent Hui Kim Seng, was jailed for five years on Wednesday, Sept. 18, after trying to hire a hitman from Camorra Hitmen.
It should be mentioned that such websites which offer assassins for hire on the Dark Web also targeted three other Singaporeans in different cases and one of them is believed to be a school student in Punggol who was ordered in May last year for an agreed price of $2,600 in bitcoin.
In the case of Allen, who is also a risk management executive, Christopher Monteiro, a security analyst first revealed the case to a journalist at the US media house CBS who then alerted the Singapore authorities. It should be noted that Monteiro, who is in his 30s, exposed several murder plots linked to such websites.
As per The New Paper, Monteiro shared details of three other targets in Singapore that he found on Dark Web.
He revealed that the first target is a student, while the second target is a woman, whose picture was posted on the website in November 2018.
The man who contacted the hitman to kill the woman had shared the unnamed woman's name and a location in western Singapore. It was also revealed that the user who used the website sent a message stating "kill her" after claiming to have sent almost $5,900 in bitcoin.
In the third case, the hitman was asked to kill a man with an Ang Mo Kio address, in exchange of $67,600 in bitcoin in December 2018.
After gathering these details The New Paper shared information with the Singapore police.
It should be mentioned that most of the times such hitman sites turn out to be fake, as news agencies like the Wired UK, CBS News, Vice News and The Mirror mentioned that the sites like Camorra Hitmen are scams.
As per Mikko Niemela, a cybersecurity expert and the leader of a darknet research team at the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime said that the trying to hire a killer on Dark Wen actually works as such sites which offer hitman services "typically have undercover officers patrolling and pretending to be service providers."
He also added that "More than half of the providers are undercover police. The rest are fake or willing to report to the authorities or otherwise get caught."
In addition he mentioned that even though such websites actually turn into scams, "About 95 percent of users on such sites think it is real, and that is what's important," because such fake assassins may not kill people but "it may provide a direct or emotional incentive for someone to carry out a murder through alternative means."
Criminal lawyer Edmond Pereira told The New Paper that "The crime is completed when the act is done. The thought itself is not an offence, it must be translated into action."
Regarding those three targets in Singapore, he said that even if no payment was made, sharing such details about people, such as names and instruction to assassinate them, would be considered 'action taken'.
