The 29-year-old woman from Canberra had agreed to pay $20,000 to a fraudulent murder-for-hire site on the dark web in September 2020 for the murder of her millionaire parents as part of an inheritance scheme. She had made a downpayment of $6000.
In October 2020, ACT Policing received a tip from an international journalist researching dark web murder-for-hire sites. The police were informed that someone had made a payment and shared details about how to target the woman’s parents.
During the woman’s trial, it was revealed that the journalist had learned of the murder plot by scraping data from the murder-for-hire site. The police said they linked the woman to the plot after establishing that the bitcoin used to make the $6000 payment had originated from an account under her name.
Further investigations revealed that the funds the woman used to make the payment were part of a $35,000 sum she had stolen from her parents.
She was arrested in December 2020 and charged with two counts of inciting murder, theft, and money laundering.
She pleaded guilty to two counts of inciting murder on February 27, 2024.