The recently arrested “redandwhite”: one of Silk Road’s greatest nemeses

I was blown away today to read the news that one of the Silk Road arrests, James Ellingson, aka “MarijuanaIsMyMuse” is apparently also the Silk Road user known as “redandwhite”. If my theory is right, redandwhite is one of the greatest scammers Silk Road ever encountered. MarijuanaIsMyMuse tickled my fancy back in the SR days […]

Murder, they wrote – freelancing for a dark web hitman

Dark web murder-for-hire organisation Besa Mafia never paid any of their would-be hitmen for burning cars for them. The only people paid were their army of freelance writers. Here’s what Besa Mafia had them do. Any freelancer knows that sometimes you have to take some pretty questionable jobs to put dinner on the table. This […]

Ugly kids are cheaper – The Besa Files

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 […]

The Little Texas Hit that Wasn’t

  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 […]

Hitting on the Aussies – the Besa Mafia files

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? Now a thorough search of the leaked mails and orders has found no evidence that […]

The curious case of Besa Mafia

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 […]

Things you didn’t know you could buy online – shopping on the Dark Web

So, we all know you can buy drugs online, but Silk Road is not the only marketplace on the dark web.  Here’s a few other things you might not have realised you can have for a price.   Redecorating?  For $1500 you can buy yourself a genuine shrunken human head.  This, I am assured, is […]

Conversation with a hitman (or not)

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 […]