The U.S. Department of Justice reports that as recently as last year, 38-year-old Kristy Lynn Felkins pleaded guilty to the charges. Felkins faced a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison for sending 12 BTC ($5,000) to an administrator of a website called Besa Mafia on the anonymous Tor network in 2016 offering hitman services.
From February to May 2016, Felkins exchanged messages with him, discussing payment and organizing the murder. The defendant provided detailed information about her former spouse’s residence, his automobile, and the times he usually left for work. Felkins wanted her ex-husband’s murder to look like an accident.
After sending the payment, the site administrator told the woman that her husband would disappear within a week. However, the Besa Mafia website turned out to be fake, and the woman was simply not refunded her bitcoins, which would be worth about $360,000 today. The murder, accordingly, didn’t happen either.
Falkins’ ex-husband, Gabriel Scott, expressed great surprise when he learned of the failed plot. According to him, his ex-wife was a wonderful mother and he did not expect her to do something like this. For her part, Felkins said she was grateful to the man from Besa Mafia who never honored the terms of their agreement.
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“I’m very glad Gabe didn’t get hurt. I thank God every day that the person I interacted with turned out to be a fraud,” said the defendant.
In 2021, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) managed to track down a criminal who also paid a hitman in bitcoins to kill his wife, which never took place.