John Michael Musbach, 31, is accused of hiring a hit man in an attempt to kill one of his teenage victims. According to the indictment, Musbach allegedly found and contacted a site offering paid murders on the Darkweb. Musbach paid $ 40,000 in Bitcoin to the site administrator to carry out the murder.
Musbach, in 2015, had an online relationship with a 13-year-old. Investigators learned that Musbach and the teen had exchanged sexually explicit videos and photographs of themselves. In March 2016, Atlantic City police arrested Musbach on child pornography charges. At the end of 2017, Musbach pleaded guilty to endangering a child's well-being due to sexual contact. He was sentenced to two years in prison.
In January 2019, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) of Newark, New Jersey, received information from a source about a Hidden Service advertising commission killings. Although law enforcement has not included the website name in the court documents, many readers will recognize the site after reading the announcement on the homepage:
"If you want to kill someone, or beat them to death, we are the right types. We have professional hit men available throughout the United States, Canada and Europe and you can hire a contract killer easily. Most of our gang members are drug dealers. drugs, but they kill under contract when they are short of cash. There are no undercover cops here. No risk of being caught, because we are professional killers: we don't ask for your name, we don't want to know who you are or where you live ... You pay in Bitcoin as collateral, and the money is held as collateral until the job is done "
Besa Mafia is the site Musbach allegedly used to hire the hitman who was supposed to kill the 13-year-old. Besa Mafia is obviously a scam and there is no paid killer. The site is operated by a scammer known as "Yura". Besa Mafia is no longer active, but Yura has no shortage of nearly identical sites advertising the same services.
After receiving information from the source, the HSI sued COINBASE (a cryptocurrency exchange platform) to obtain information on the Bitcoin address used for payment. The address was associated with an account belonging to a Coinbase user under the name of John Musbach. Information provided by Coinbase indicated that Musbach had sent 40.64 bitcoins to the Besa Mafia address.
If convicted of commissioned murder, Musbach faces up to ten years in prison.
