Man who hired hitman from Dark Web to kill love rival sentenced to 5 years' jail
SINGAPORE — A man who had hired a hitman from the Dark Web to eliminate a love rival was sentenced to five years’ jail on Wednesday (18 September).
District Judge Shaiffudin Saruwan said that Allen Hui Kim Seng, 47, had believed that he had engaged a hitman and had taken significant steps to achieve his goals of killing his 30-year-old former mistress’ boyfriend.
“The accused had engaged hitmen from the Dark Web and took a series of calculated steps to achieve his (ends) which show his high level of sophistication and planning and deliberation,” said the judge.
He disagreed with Hui’s lawyer, Lee Teck Leng, that the possibility of the website “Camorra Hitmen” being a scam was a mitigating factor, as Hui’s conduct had shown that he believed the transactions were genuine. Lee had earlier sought a sentence of two-and-a-half years' jail for his client.
District Judge Shaiffudin also did not accept that Hui was suffering from clinical depression at the time of the evidence, saying that even if he had such a condition, there was no evidence that it caused the offence.
“I did not find any offender-specific factor that warrant significant downward shift of the (sentencing) range,” said the judge, who agreed with the prosecution’s proposed sentence of five years.
Affair with woman from 2016
Hui, who is married with a young daughter, had an affair with a former colleague, a Malaysian woman.
He began dating the woman on 22 April 2016 after becoming her colleague in January that same year. The woman ended the relationship in February 2018, after realising that Hui did not intend to leave his wife.
After realising that his former lover was in a relationship with a new man – known as Tan – on 4 May 2018, Hui had turned to the “Camorra Hitmen” website with the intention of removing Tan from the mistress’ life.
He researched how to purchase and trade in bitcoins, and created an account with the website. He sent the woman's particulars to the website, asking to have the new boyfriend’s right hand cut off.
Hui later amended his order, asking for the woman's boyfriend to have his hand crippled in an accident.
As part of his efforts, he recorded Tan's car plate number and even trailed the car to an estate in Hougang Avenue 10, trying unsuccessfully to confirm Tan's home address.
Order changed to murder in staged accident
Subsequently, he changed his order again to pouring acid on Tan’s face, and gave Tan's details to the website. After more bitcoin was transferred, Hui settled on having Tan murdered in a staged car accident.
The murder was fixed on 22 May, between 7pm and 8pm. Hui chose the timing as he knew that Tan would be dropping the woman off at the airport and did not want his former lover to be injured.
Hui later instructed that all his communications with ‘Camorra Hitmen’ be removed so that the murder would not be traced back to him. He ultimately paid more than S$8,000 in bitcoins.
His plan was foiled 10 days before the planned assassination, when a journalist from the American television network CBS tipped off the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ (MFA) Washington Mission. MFA then alerted the Singapore Police Force.
Hui was arrested by the police seven days before the alleged hit. He was ordered by the police to cancel the hit and withdraw all his bitcoins from his Camorra Hitmen account.
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