"Silk Road" Pan MacMillan
CrimeBay, the new incarnation of Besa Mafia, has stepped up its marketing with a new attempt to extort money by crowdfunding a hit on the new US President.
“Donald Trump is an extremely difficult target”, the site acknowledges, “however, he is neither a God nor immortal, and Crime Bay enjoys a challenge.”
CrimeBay’s crowdfunding page for the assassination of Trump
Another story from the dark web “murder-for-hire” site hack. Read The Curious Case of Besa Mafia first.
There are stories of people paying real money, verifiable through the blockchain, that have come out of the hack. Both targets and their would-be killers can be identified, so it’s only fair to leave those to the authorities for now.
Meanwhile, in an epic troll, someone contacted Besa Mafia asking whether they can buy children (its okay if they’re ugly, but not if they’re from the Midwest).
Even hitmen get trolled
And it’s hard to imagine BesaAdmin is not playing along.
BesaAdmin steps up to respond to all questions, complete with scenarios lifted straight from films about how to get them to cooperate (pretend you’re the nice guy getting them from the bad guys) and no, they are not kept in basements until they’re sold. You can refuse the first two kids they come up with, but there will be no a trial rental of a child.
Anon is interested in trialling out becoming a hitperson, because he doesn’t think there are many in Kansas. Besa would have to supply the sniper rifle though, because Anon can’t afford that and the hoodies.
It’s all kind of darkly amusing, if you have a particularly warped sense of humour.
The hack of dark web “murder-for-hire” outfit Besa Mafia, which I wrote about a couple of days ago. has provided a treasure trove of stories of people who are prepared to go to extreme measures to be rid of someone in their lives. Most never got further than the initial enquiries. A few parted with tens of thousands of dollars. Nobody got much satisfaction.
One of the first customers that Besa Mafia engaged with was a Texan fellow who wanted to put out a hit on his ex-wife. It didn’t go quite to plan. Especially once Guido came into the conversation.
Before the recent hack confirmed definitively what rational people already knew – i.e. that the dark web “murder-for-hire” site was a scam – it was a little disconcerting that Besa Mafia’s No.1 FAQ was Do you have people in Australia?
Aussies have always been big users of the DNMs
Now a thorough search of the leaked mails and orders has found no evidence that any of the people who made Australian-based enquiries parted with any money. However, at least one sent full details of the intended victim.
Compared to the US orders (where payments were made), interest seems to peter out fairly quickly from most of the Aussie enquirers. (If you haven’t heard about the site or the hack, catch up here).
I’ve compiled a list of the Australian interactions with the site, presented in an easy-read format, without commentary but accompanied by whimsical illustrations for you:
Disturbing revelations have come out of a dark web hire-a-hitman site
Drugs, hacking services, stolen financial and personal information and fraud-related services are the staple products of the darknet markets. But there has always been websites offering far more sinister wares – poisons, human beings and hitmen. Such sites are overwhelmingly amateurish, poorly worded fakes, designed to separate the gullible from their Bitcoin.
Earlier this year, Besa Mafia burst on to the dark web with a slick and user-friendly site. They claimed to be Albanian organised crime figures, with employees all over the world. Despite laughable “testimonials” and a ridiculous writing style, the owner of the site managed to convince many that they were real.
Besa embarked on a marketing spree on the clearweb, with apparently satisfied customers providing ‘personal stories’ of successful hits. Little by little, belief that they were genuine began to gain traction. Redditors would claim the others were fake, but Besa was the real deal. Believers would stubbornly insist they knew someone who knew someone who hired a contract killer and paid them in Bitcoin.
Dark web mythbuster and Moderator of /r/deepweb, Deku-Shrub was tiring of the misinformation and rumour spreading by Besa shills. He responded to every post that claimed the services offered by the website were real with a rebuttal and even interviewed the site owners, then ridiculed them on his blog, Pirate London.
Rational people knew this site was a scam, just like all the others. Probably some geeky kid with too much time on his hands and too many hours spent on Playstation having a laugh.
Then something happened.
This image is probably very copyright to Sony and I’m sorry, but it is really really hard to find an appropriate image. Please don’t fine me, Sony
Today the owner of Silk Road announced the closure of its sister site, the weapons-dealing Armory. The reason was not heat from law enforcement or negative press, it was simply that the site was not profitable and members complained that many listings were scams.
There are dozens of black market sites selling all manner of things on the Dark Web, but only Silk Road seems to have any real commercial success. The closure of the Armory raises the question of whether it is the business model or the products that cause a market to fail. Complaints of scams riddle the dark web and the online black market might not be as successful and prolific as some fear. Is there something about drugs that inherently make them the only truly viable anonymous online black market product?
As I delved into the Dark Web I noticed a plethora of advertisements for contract killers. I decided to try and engage one of the more prolific advertisers, an organisation that claims to have many successful hits, to kill a fictitious ex-husband. Here’s what transpired:
