US man imprisoned after paying bitcoin to eliminate child he molested
A New Jersey resident, John Michael Musbach, has been sentenced to 78 months in prison following his attempt to hire a hitman via the dark web to assassinate a minor he had previously sexually exploited. The objective of this heinous act was to prevent the 14-year-old victim from testifying against him. Musbach, 34, paid over $20,000 in bitcoin to a fraudulent murder-for-hire website on the dark web, intending to have the child murdered. His actions were exposed in January 2019 when Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) agents in New Jersey received data detailing communications between the administrators of the dark web site and its users, who were seeking to hire hitmen. In May 2016, a user under the pseudonym “agentisai” was found to be seeking the murder of a 14-year-old child. After confirming that a minor was an acceptable target and disclosing a budget of $20,000, agentisai transferred 40.64 bitcoin to the site and placed an order. The site’s administra...