Europol and the Italian Postal and Communication Police (Polizia Postale e delle Comunicazioni) arrested an Italian national as part of the “Operation Hitman” because he is suspected of hiring a hitman on the dark web.
The man was looking for an Italian killer to ” break his ex’s back in such a way as to make her become paralyzed and forced to move in a wheelchair ‘ and ”pour acid on her face.”
According to the Italian media, the man hired the hitman through an internet assassination service on the TOR network, was agreed to pay about €10 000 worth in Bitcoins.
“The hitman, hired through an internet assassination website hosted on the TOR network, was payed about €10 000 worth in Bitcoins to kill the ex-girlfriend of the suspect.” reads the press release published by the Europol.
“Europol carried out an urgent, complex crypto-analysis to enable the tracing and identification of the provider from which the suspect purchased the cryptocurrencies.”
Europol conducted the analysis of the transactions related to the payment in cryptocurrency and was able to determine the Italian crypto service provider from which the suspect purchased the cryptocurrencies. The Italian crypto service provider provided information to the Polizia Postale to identify the Italian suspect.
“The timely investigation prevented any harm to be perpetrated against the potential victim.” concludes the press release “Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre (EC3) and the Joint Cybercrime Action Taskforce (J-CAT) hosted at Europol supported this investigation with operational analysis and expertise.”
I made an interview with the Italian broadcaster RAI News on the case, you can find it here:
If you want to receive the weekly Security Affairs Newsletter for free subscribe here.
Follow me on Twitter: @securityaffairs and Facebook
| [adrotate banner=”9″] | [adrotate banner=”12″] |
(SecurityAffairs – hacking, Operation hitman)
[adrotate banner=”5″]
[adrotate banner=”13″]
The National Police Agency in South Korea warns that North Korea-linked threat actors are targeting…
The U.S. Department of State imposed visa restrictions on 13 individuals allegedly linked to the…
A cyber attack has been disrupting operations at Synlab Italia, a leading provider of medical…
Russia-linked APT28 group used a previously unknown tool, dubbed GooseEgg, to exploit Windows Print Spooler…
A financially motivated group named GhostR claims the theft of a sensitive database from World-Check…
Researcher demonstrated how to exploit vulnerabilities in the Windows DOS-to-NT path conversion process to achieve…
This website uses cookies.