Fake hitman-for-hire site on the dark web has received real ‘kill orders’ from around the world

Carl Miller still gets sick to his stomach every time he remembers seeing all the smiling faces of the so-called killers.

“It’s scary — it’s terrible,” a UK-based tech journalist told Fox News Digital. “These pictures were always very beautiful. Some of them were their Facebook profile pictures. You stare at these pictures, you stare at yourself. The target always looks happy, glamorous and often surrounded by family. … You just look at the eyes and think, ‘Do you have the impression that you are in danger?’ ?’

Miller is the host of Wondery’s new true crime podcast, “Kill List.” It explores how Miller found a fake recruitment site on the dark web, prompting him and his team to alert the police.

During his investigation, Miller also contacted potential victims to tell them their personal information — including work addresses and photos — had been posted online.

LISTEN TO THE FOX TRUE CRIME PODCAST WITH EMILY COMPAGNO

The series includes some of the 175 execution orders that Miller’s team turned over to the police, The Hollywood Reporter said. According to the source, that information led to the conviction of 32 people and more than 150 years in prison.

“Some of these kill orders would go on, page after page,” Miller recalled. “The directions were really effective, like, ‘Target usually drives around this time in the morning. This is their car and that’s where they work. Watch out, they have a dog.’ There were many instructions on how to make a hit.

“It also focused on why a person needs to die,” he said. “We had to think this through because it was our best clue as to who might have issued the order. … It’s a very difficult thing to do, to look directly into the mind of someone who wants … another person to be killed. And that’s not a place that I think most people have to face in life. their daily lives.”

Carl Miller, a UK-based technology journalist, is the host of “Kill List.” (surprised)

The saga began in 2020 when Chris Monteiro, an IT specialist and hacker, browsed the site and discovered a security vulnerability that gave him full access to it, the Guardian reported. According to the store, he received a “kill list,” a spreadsheet listing hundreds of people from around the world that clients wanted removed.

“We were going to do a podcast, which was supposed to look back at the murders of black people over the last few years,” Miller explained. “We didn’t expect it, but Chris started sending us these live execution orders. Most of the story of the podcast is us trying to deal with all of that, trying to make sense and trying to react appropriately.”

With Monteiro’s help, Miller was able to review private messages between customers and the website owner. According to The Guardian, this website is a scam run by a Romanian crook who had no intention of providing bad services. Instead, the fraudster pocketed the payment.

FOLLOW THE FOX TRUE CRIME TEAM ON X

Carl Miller tried to alert the police but was laughed at, he said. Then he decided to reach his destination. (Annette Riedl/photo alliance via Getty Images)

“People believed this place was real, but it wasn’t,” Miller explained. “The recruitment site does not send killers. It is not interested in sending killers. Romanian cybercriminals are interested in taking money from criminals – that’s all. And we saw that early. As soon as we started blocking these orders for murder, we learned that no murders were happening.

“If they were real killers, they were the most ignorant killers you’ve ever met,” Miller added. “They kept going astray, they would lose their gun, the target would be very well protected or they would be in a different country. These could not work because there was no one to hit. Romanian criminals tried to extort as much money as they could, and then, they just ignored the person from that point on.

“But we could see that the real danger came from the people who were targeted on the list. They were very dangerous.”

Chris Monteiro, an IT expert and hacker, was reportedly browsing the site and discovered a security vulnerability that gave him full access to it. (surprised)

The death toll varies, Miller said.

“There was a case in the UK, a love triangle,” he explained. “There was a store manager who had an affair with two employees. One of those employees tried to kill the other. The order was only 100 pounds ($126.38). It’s the smallest we’ve seen. But then there was a doctor in the US who paid over $50,000 for the beating.

Miller said that when he realized that the orders were real, he immediately called the local police in the UK and was ordered to undergo a mental health background check.

SUBSCRIBE FOR A TRUE CRIME STORY

“If they were real killers, they were the most ignorant killers you’ll ever find,” Carl Miller told Fox News Digital. (Thomas Trutschel/Photothek via Getty Images)

“I think they were worried I was crazy,” Miller said. “When they were convinced that I was actually not crazy, they took it seriously. But the problem was that these orders were spread all over the world. We had cases in Russia, Finland, Spain, the US … from a police station in Spain. That’s on tape, the police are laughing.

“In America, the police told one of those who were targeted that he thought we might be scamming them. In Switzerland, the police told one of those who suspected that we were running this place to get a story. There is no evidence that that was true.

“I would say that was the lowest and most difficult moment in this whole investigation for us.”

When Miller and his team felt that the police were not taking them seriously, they reached out to their targets in hopes of warning them. They were also willing to provide their targets with whatever they needed to inform law enforcement.

Steven Allwine told police he came home to find his wife dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. But investigators found inconsistencies in the suicide scenario and discovered that he had tried to hire a hitman on the dark web. In 2018, a Minnesota resident was sentenced to life in prison without parole. (Washington County Sheriffs Office)

“It’s very unusual to step out of the normal role of being a reporter,” Miller said. “Journalists are reporting. They are waiting. They are watching. But they are not coming in. And I think that if there was another way for us to intervene in another way that would have kept these people safe, we would have done that first. But we couldn’t think of another way that would have worked well… You had Romanian cybercriminals who were trying hiding from us, but you also had the police who didn’t believe us … that’s why we did it.”

At first, Miller was worried about reaching the target, wondering if those who would want it out would panic and “hold back.” He also did not want those who received him to “go into a panic attack.”

His reaction shocked her.

GET UPDATES DIRECTLY FROM TRUE CRIME HUB

Some of the targets were lovers and spouses, among others. (Getty Images)

“A lot of people weren’t thinking and they were calm when they called,” Miller said. “It took a while for the message to sink in. One of the women I spoke to was so upset by the news that she didn’t even change her plans for the evening. She was going to see her friend who lives nearby. Her estranged husband.

“A guy from Wisconsin asked reasonable questions. But when we talked to him a week later, he told me that he was surrounded by a sense of insecurity. He would park his car, get out of his car and get ready to fight. .He was always waiting for someone to jump out of the woods. Every time he shoveled snow, every time a car passed by , he would run back to his house … find ways to feel safe again.”

The podcast revealed that, in the end, the FBI got an investigation into Miller’s investigation. It was believed that he was right.

According to Carl Miller, the FBI took his case seriously. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

“When they confirmed the information and saw that it was true, they started investigating the US cases. … After that, we started to see effective police investigations.”

Miller hopes the podcast will help raise awareness about similar sites that may exist. And this, he said, can happen to anyone.

“I don’t want to scare people unnecessarily, but I think one of the things that surprised me the most was how familiar everyone was, whether you were a victim or a perpetrator. Going into this, I thought we were going to deal with no more drugs, organized crime, but that wasn’t the case.

CLICK HERE FOR THE FOX NEWS PROGRAM

“The people on the list and the people who put them there, in many cases, looked like you and me. They had normal lives, normal jobs. And, in many cases, the perpetrators were able to maintain a respectable public exterior. At the same time as they were secretly, and sometimes desperately, trying to kill someone.”