California Man Paid $13K In BTC To A Hitman To Kill His Ex-Girlfriend

A California man paid $13K in BTC to a hitman to kill his ex-girlfriend and now he has to spend 10 years of his life in jail so let’s have a closer look at our latest Bitcoin news.

Scott Quinn Berkett, the California man will spend up to 10 years in prison for paying $13K worth of BTC to a hitman to kill his ex-girlfriend. Berkett is a 25-year-old resident of Beverly Hills, LA, and pleaded guilty to transferring $13K of BTC to a hitman on the dark web to kill his ex-girlfriend. According to the news coverage, Berkett and his former partner met online in 2020 and a few months later, they started dating. Shortly after, the woman tried to end the relationship and claimed that Berkett was sexually aggressive.

For his part, the man did anything possible to continue the relationship and at one point, the woman’s family became so worried that they contacted Berkett asking him to stay away from her. The 25-year-old didn’t do so and hired a hitman on the Dark Web to murder the woman. Fortunately, undercover agents revealed the crime and contacted Berkett introducing themselves as the hitman he later confirmed pictures of the victim and sent $1000 to the detectives for requesting proof of murder.

His sentencing is scheduled for September 13 and now he faces a maximum prison time of 10 years in jail. The critics of the asset class often argue that crypto is used to facilitate illegal activities. And indeed, there were a few examples of such transactions in the past few years. Last summer, we saw the Indian Police arresting Makarand Pardeem Adivirkar on suspicion of purchasing narcotics from the DArk Web using BTC. According to the prosecutors, the criminal was buying drugs from EU and Indian dealers:

“In November 2020, a team of NCB Mumbai had seized 20 LSD blots from Kharodi Village in Malad. The seized psychotropic substance was purchased from Europe by using bitcoin.”

During that summer, the demand for COVID vaccines was so high that some countries struggled to distribute the vaccinations to their residents. The Dark Web outlaws used this opportunity and started selling fake certificates and stolen doses. Also, in April This year, the US DOJ confiscated up to $24 million worth of crypto tied to illicit Dark Net activities and also seized the sum for a Florida resident who sold more than 100K illegal items on the dark web.