Romanian police have arrested five men behind the dark web’s most notorious assassinations sites: Besa Mafia, Camorra Hitman, and, more recently, Hitman Marketplace #1.
The resource was fake, and the site administrators did not know any killers, but this did not stop them from taking from 5,000 to 20,000 dollars in bitcoins to search for performers.
The site was created in the 2010s and allegedly offered visitors a platform to search for contractors for assassinations. Users were asked to provide details of the target and information on how and when the assassination was to take place and then were asked to pay a “commission” in bitcoin.
From the very beginning, it was clear that the site was most likely a fraudulent one, and yet, over the years of its operation, the administration has accepted thousands of orders and found many paying customers. Husbands ordered the murders of their wives, business partners sought killers for their colleagues, a man who lost money on a sports betting site asked about the murder of a customer service representative who refused to help with a refund, and there was even one who ordered the murder of a 14-year-old teenager.
Many details about Besa Mafia became known back in 2016, when the site was hacked, and information about the users of the site and their orders became public. Let me remind you that at that time, the resource claimed to be connected with the Albanian mafia.
The Romanian Organized Crime and Terrorism Investigation Authority (DIICOT) now reports that the raids and arrests were carried out at the request of US authorities. The US Department of Homeland Security and the FBI have been investigating cases related to this resource for many years. As DIICOT writes:
As a result, during the operation by law enforcement officers, five people and four witnesses were detained.
Information security expert Christopher Monteiro, who studied Besa Mafia activity in detail back in 2016 and devoted a series of articles to it on his blog, angered the site administrators so much that they threatened him personally.
Then Monteiro wrote that Besa Mafia is a scam and, to some extent, an urban legend. However, the users of the site took their “orders” seriously, they wanted to cause real harm to other people, and the expert tried for a long time to warn the authorities about this danger.
Unfortunately, law enforcement officers took Besa Mafia seriously only in the 2020s. As a result, according to Monteiro, about 25 customers have since been arrested, but the administration of the site has remained elusive until recently.
For many years, the authorities did not know who was behind the Besa Mafia since someone “Yura” was responsible for all contacts with users. He talked to people who asked questions about the services of killers, encouraged them to make orders, and tried to dispel all their fears in broken English. Based on the logs of such chats, the authorities assumed that he lived in Eastern Europe (most likely in Romania). At the same time, Yura even gave interviews to journalists, changing his voice, but his identity and whereabouts were not known for certain.
Even now, after all the arrests and searches, it is not clear whether Besa Mafia was the brainchild of one person who developed his “business” to such an extent that he needed the support of an entire team or some group was always behind the site.
DIICOT reports that the damage from the work of the Besa Mafia is estimated at about 500,000 euros, but if the scammers kept the bitcoins received in 2016, they would probably be worth much more today.
The aforementioned Christopher Monteiro, who for years tried to draw attention to the Besa Mafia problem, reacted ambiguously to the news about the detention of Yura.
The media also note that Besa Mafia already has many imitators. For example, a journalist from Vice Motherboard writes that he easily found a similar site on the darknet aimed at a Russian-speaking audience. From there, he was directed to Telegram, where he asked how he could find a killer in Los Angeles. The resource owners answered him within a few minutes, saying they could arrange everything quickly and the murder would cost $15,000.
Let me remind you that we also talked about the fact that the British police announced the arrest of several members of the Lapsus$ group, and also that the US authorities arrested Kaseya hacker and attacker associated with REvil and GandCrab.
too bad they were arrested
scamming people who want to kill people is saving lifes
These people who run fake hitmen sites are foiling murderers plans to kill people and are saving many victims from being killed
Many people who want someone dead are well determined, and will do the killing themselves if nothing else works.
That was the case of Stephen Allwine, he tried everything to kill his wife and when everything failed he killed her himself
When people try fake hitmen sites and get scammed, they get discouraged and most give up.
Other people get arrested by Police and the they can not try other means to kill their victim
Even if one single customer gets arrested by Police, as an indirect result of customer ordering on a fake hitman site, then one life is saved and the fake hitman site did a good thing
But there are many customers who got arrested by Police so there were many lives that were saved
Do you prefer people not to run fake hitmen sites? If there would be no fake hitmen sites, lots of people will search for alternative ways to kill the victims
And more victims would be dead
No one has been arrested, fortunately, because they got the wrong people. This article is a lie when it says people have been arrested
Police have conducted raids and seized laptops and devices, but they didn’t find anything related to hitmen or to fake hitman sites. The people had been released the same day from police custody
The hitmen sites are still online and working
Police officers in the USA have been doing abuse, they are looking to find scape goats to blame for the fake hitmen sites and they checked the wrong people
One would expect when they arrested operators to shut down sites at the same time, yet no people have been arrested, and no sites have been shut down with the FBI logo.
The USA police are just promoting fake news articles, and they are pursuing wrong leads, trying to punish innocent people to cover up their inability to find the real owners.
All hitmen on dark web are fake, but they have a good impact on society as they decrease murder rates.
Fake hitmen put obstacles in the customers plans of killing someone, this causing a decrease in killing rate per year because lots of customers give up on their killing plan or they get arrested by police
As a result fake hitmen decrease killing rates because:
They stall the customers as much as possible, making them wait for a hit that never happens, buying time for targets ( without being tricked into waiting for a hit, a customer could decide to do the kiling by himself )
They scam the customers of their money, over and over again, so that the customers cannot afford to pay criminals on dark alleys later if they decide to
They send target information to police, so that police have a chance of saving the targets
So all these things, stalling the customers, scamming the customers, sending target info to police, is actually doing it more difficult for people to achieve their killing plans, lots of them give up
Would you prefer that someone who wants to kill you, gets lots of obstacles in the way? Like fake hitmen, a faulty gun, fake poison, broken knife etc?
Why do you want to remove these obstacles for the people who plan to murder someone? Why do you teach them how to avoid fake hitmen, or how to check the gun before to make sure it works etc?
These fake hitmen sites are putting obstacles in front of the customers who want to get killing done, because the fake hitmen sites are:
1. Stalling the customers as much as possible, buying time for the targets
2. Scamming customers again and again until customers don’t have more funds to achieve their killing plan
3. They give target info to police to help them protect the targets and arrest the customers
The fake hitmen sites are decreasing the murder rates because many people who want to kill fall in the fake hitmen sites trap, awaiting a long time for a hit that never happens, until either they get arrested or get tired of everything and give up
You can read there have been many customers arrested because of the fake hitmen sites, and these customers who got arrested were now disabled from continuing with their plan to kill the targets, so many lives have been saved with the fake hitmen sites
All of you who present fake hitmen sites here are just helping would be murderers to stay away from the fake hitmen sites and find other ways to kill their targets.
By showing fake hitmen sites you are helping the would be murderers to avoid wasting their money and time and you help them skip directly to other ways of achieving their goal of killing someone
By helping the would be murderers avoid fake hitmen sites, you are doing accessory to murder.
I understand you want to expose scams that scam the good people, because scamming good people is not ok
But scamming the bad people, such as would be murderers, rapists, child abusers or other criminals is ok, let all criminals be scammed and stopped in their plan!
Why do you help would be murderers by showing them what fake sites they should avoid?
You should understand that is not these fake hitmen sites that convince people to kill. Isn’t like these fake hitmen sites go out shouting loud key kill someone!
Instead people who already decide they want to have someone dead, they find an easy way to do it first, because they are afraid of doing it themselves
But when everything fails, these would be murderers who try to hire hitmen, they could take the matter into their own hands and do the killing themselves
Why do you help them skip the fake hitmen by telling hitmen sites are fake and causing them to jump directly to kill someone on their own?
These would be murderers who want someone dead first search for keywords like hire a hitman or hitman services and they find hitmen sites offering services
Then, they get scammed, they get stalled, and they lose their money and time until most of them give up on the thought to try to kill someone
Some others of them get arrested
A small number that are very determined, that do not give up and do not get arrested, end up killing the person they want them on their own, without hitmen and without other people
Fake hitmen are like ethical scammers, they do trouble to the would be murderers and they contribute to saving victims’ lives
If you expose the ethical scammers that are fake hitmen, then you help the would be murderers jump directly to doing the killing on their own, taking away the chance of police arresting them
My question is, do you feel good knowing you help would be murderers avoid scams?
Do you feel good knowing that because of you, would be murderers avoid fake hitmen sites and jump directly to killing the victims on their own?
Chris Monteiro has been helping murderers for years, by advising them which hitmen sites are fake for the murderers to stay away from these fake hitmen sites.
Many would be murderers who were searching for hitmen to hire, have stopped trying to hire hitmen online because Chris Monteiro convinced them all hitmen sites online are fake, and instead the would be murderers decided to take matters into their own hands and do the killings themselves
Chris Monteiro is a pedophile, he loves child abusers and he loves murderers, that is why he provides child porn links and materials on the dark web and that’s why Chris Monteiro does accessory to murder by helping murderers with advice of which hitmen sites are fake, convincing the would be murderers to stay away from such sites and to take the matter into their own hands to kill the victims by their own without requesting help from fake hitmen sites
Such a case was when Chris Monteiro was part of Besa Mafia, after disputes with other admins he pretended to hack the site because he already has access to the site and he posted that the Besa Mafia was fake, and all hitmen sites are fake, causing would be murderers such as Stephen Allwine to lose faith in hitmen online and to take the matter into his own hands and killing the Amy Allwine
Stephen Allwine was a would be murderer trying to hire a hitman on Besa Mafia fake hitmen site, and when Chris Monteiro exposed the Besa Mafia as being fake, Stephen Allwine lost faith in hiring hitmen and he decided to do the killing by himself
If Chris Monteiro would have not exposed Besa Mafia as being fake and if it would have not exposed other hitmen sites as being fake, would be murderers like Stephen Allwine would have lost a lot of time and money into trying to hire hitmen on various sites until he would have probably gotten arrested and the murder would have not to happen
Anyone exposing fake hitmen sites is helping would be murderers avoid scams and traps, and contributing to the would be murderers’ decistion to find other ways to fulfill their goal, many of them deciding to do the kill on their own
Anyone exposing fake hitmen sites is the friends of the would be murderers and is doing accessory to murder by their help and consultancy provided to the would be murderers
The admins on the Besa Mafia website, had different talking styles and approaches
The Besa Mafia sent notes to FBI trying to help protect targets
When the site was hacked, a copy of the database was released to public, but this was not the original database instead it was a tampered database
Those people raided in Romania, Moldova, India and other similar countries were freelancers who worked for the besa mafia admins
If we analyze the impact of these fraudsters on society, we can see they obstruct and hinder the would be murderers, stalling and delaying them in their murder plans, buying more time for targets and even saving targets
Several things worth mentioning:
Chris Monteiro was one of the initial Besa Mafia admins, and he was one of the initial people involved with the project
He wanted the site to do real killings, while other admins wanted the project to be a scam.
They had different opinions on how the site should be managed, so he got kicked out of and locked off the project by one of the server Linux administrators
He had backdoor access to the project so he got back into the server, and then pretended he hacked the site and exposed everything to be a scam to close off the project
The hackers can be blackhat and whitehat
The whitehat hackers are supposed to hack the bad guys for good purposes
Fraudsters are the same, blackhat fraudsters and whitehat fraudsters
The whitehat fraudsters fraud bad people such as murderers and terrorists and steal their funds stopping them in their murder plans
While blackhat fraudsters fraud good people and innocent people, and they are to be condemned, the white hat fraudsters fraud bad people and stop them in their illegal and immoral plans and they have a good impact on society
Imagine that some terrorists manage to raise 1 million dollars and they go to buy materials needed to build a bomb and they get scammed in the process and end up with no money and no bomb, would that be a good thing or a bad thing? would you arrest and condemn the fraudsters who scammed the terrorists?
Imagine that people want to kill their wives, bosses, friends, and they go with money to hire a hitman, they get scammed and end up arrested
I hope that the white hat fraudsters don’t get caught
I think is a good security practice for them to
– periodically wipe out activity history and traces
– always use disk encryption
– always use virtual machines
– keep the machines for scamming bad people separate from the machines used for their personal use
– hide the machines for scamming bad people when not in use, so that no one finds them
This way, if anyone searches them, they won’t find the machines for the white hat scamming, if they find the machines they are encrypted, if they break the encryption, there won’t be many traces and activity history
The time of Police is precious and they can focus on saving lives, reducing crime, saving people