Utah Man Hires Dark Web Hitman To Kill Two

On Wednesday, December 6, a Utah man pleaded guilty to hiring the services of a person on the dark web to kill two New York residents in 2021. He allegedly paid a full $16,000 in Bitcoin, with your typical ending to these things. An anonymous “report,” an arrest, and no kills. We have yet to find any cases of a successful hit ordered through the Darknet. Let’s look at Christopher Pence and why he wanted to kill two people.

“I Found A Darknet Market For Hitman”

Christopher Pence, 43, a security architect at Microsoft and resident of Cedar City, pleaded guilty to using a website on the darknet dedicated to organizing contract murders from July until August 2021. 

Pence utilized the website to arrange the murder of two Rensselaer County residents in New York. Prosecutors allege that Pence paid $16,000 worth of Bitcoin to the website administrator to fund the murder contracts before issuing the names, addresses, and photographic images of the two targets. 

Assistant U.S. Attorney Emmet O’Hanlon said that Pence wrote to the administrator at the website in a July 20, 2021 message, stating: “I have a couple targets, husband and wife, that I am needing removed.”

Court documents reveal that Pence intended for the contract killings to be made to look like an accident or botched robbery. He further requested that any children who resided with the victims were to remain unharmed in the hit. 

The U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Northern District of New York said Pence faces up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000, as well as a term of up to three years of supervised release. Pence remains in federal custody and is scheduled to be sentenced on April 2, 2024.

What We Know About the Incident

Christopher Pence and his wife adopted five children from a couple in Rensselaer County, New York. Some years later, Pence found himself in an “escalating dispute” with the couple in New York over the custody of several children. 

The trio didn’t agree on how the children should be raised and on the lifestyles of the two victims. Pence believed that child abuse was taking place in the victim’s residence and that the children were not safe being around the husband. 

Between July 16, 2021 and August 2021, Pence went onto a Darknet Market promising murder-for-hire. He wend on to pay administrators $16,000 worth of Bitcoin for a hit on the couple. On September 2nd, 2021, the FBI received a tip-off from a confidential source which included communications from a darknet website of a user paying $16,000 for the killing of two individuals.

The FBI’s confidential source operated voluntarily and in the past has received payments for providing records of communications on the dark web, which revealed actual attempts to hire hitmen.

The information provided by the confidential source depicted communications between the administrator of a dark website and Pence. The communication records reveal that Pence made several Bitcoin payment transactions to the site administrator through a cryptocurrency wallet.

The FBI’s National Cyber Investigative Joint Task Force was able to identify the crypto exchange Pence used to make payments to the dark website based on specific identifiers associated with the transactions.

Agents submitted requests to the crypto exchanges for information associated with the account details. A grand jury subpoena was sufficient and provided information about the subscriber, a list of transactions, and IP logins associated with Pence’s transactions.

The subscriber information provided by the crypto exchange account identified Christopher Pence as the owner of the account. The information included his date of birth, social security number, an address for 2929 South 6500 West Cedar City, Utah, his driver’s license number, his cell phone number, and a linked bank account.

Pence’s identity was successfully identified through a photograph on his driver’s license, which he submitted to the crypto exchange. Payments from his crypto wallet address are linked with the transactions made to the dark web administrator.

In the early morning of October 27, 2021, more than 20 FBI agents swarmed Pence’s home. Outside his residence in a government Chevy Tahoe, Pence divulged his confession to the murder scheme to agents.

Agent engaged in small talk with Pence, stating that he wasn’t under arrest and they were just there to talk. The transcript between the two officers and Pence showed that he repeatedly admitted to the alleged plot.

Pence confessed to reaching out to an administrator on a dark website. FBI agents asked him, “So, what you’re telling me is that you paid [$16,000] on the murder-for-hire website to have [the couple] killed?” To which he replied, “Yes.”

Following Pence’s confession to hiring the services of a hitman to kill the couple, he was arrested by the FBI in Utah on October 27, 2021.  He has remained in federal custody since that time.

The FBI investigated this case and acted together with Assistant U.S. Attorney Emmet J. O’Hanlon, who is prosecuting the matter. Pence was tried before Senior U.S. District Judge Thomas McAvoy.

Pence is charged with using a facility of interstate commerce in connection with murder-for-hire. He is currently being detained in the Albany County jail. The alleged victims of the murder scheme, a 35-year-old man and 38-year-old woman, remained unharmed.

Conclusion: No Hitmen On Darknet

Christopher Pence’s attempt to hire a hitman on the dark web to kill a couple from New York was just another failure. Proving more than ever that he did not deserve to win the custody dispute over the adopted children. Although he paid $16,000 in Bitcoin, authorities were “tipped off” and Pence was arrested before anyone was harmed. While Pence sits 10 years in prison, this case highlights the fact that finding a Hitman on the Darknet is not the way to go. It also proves that simply using the Darknet doesn’t make you anonymous. For that, you need to understand OpSec.