Tying up Silk Road’s loose ends: Redandwhite
The Silk Road saga continues with the indictment of James Ellingson, known by numerous aliases on the platform, most famously as ‘redandwhite’. But is he in the US? Is he possibly even in the same establishment as Variety Jones? Last week, a certain James Ellingson was charged with drug and money laundering offences connected to […]
Behind the scenes of a CBS 48 Hours story on dark web hitmen
How I became a dark web consultant to a TV show, and my somewhat complicated relationship with the owner of the most profitable online murder-for-hire service in history I recently worked as a consultant to CBS for their season premiere of 48 Hours: “Click for a Killer” after I met a CBS producer at the trial […]
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 […]