Italian man ‘offered €10,000 in Bitcoin’ to maim ex-partner

Investigators in Rome have placed under house arrest a man who they say paid an attacker within the dark web to maim his ex-girlfriend.

The suspect is accused of offering €10,000 (£8,700; $12,000) in Bitcoin in return for darkode reborn the attack, which may have paralysed the lady, police said.

He was traced by Italian authorities and the EU’s crime agency and the woman was unharmed.

The would-be attacker has not been identified.

What’s the man accused of?
“It looks just like the plot of a modern thriller,” Italy’s Postal and Communication Police said in a statement.

The suspect, a 40-year-old IT expert from the northern region of Lombardy, is speculated to have gone on the dark web some months after his relationship broke down in July 2020.

Police said he contacted an intermediary via a website on the dark web , seeking to hire an attacker to throw acid at his ex-girlfriend’s face and to break her back, leaving her paralysed.

Despite having made the very first of four payments to the would-be attacker, the suspect remained touching his intended victim, sending her flowers and messages, in accordance with police.

Italian news agency Adnkronos quoted the arrest warrant as saying that the attack was to be staged to look just like a robbery.

The suspect, who’d been in a two-year relationship with the woman, had handed down her home address and Facebook profile, the news headlines agency added.

How was he traced?
Italian authorities said these were alerted after messages from the suspect were intercepted by police from another European country in February.

The request had been placed through the Tor network – privacy-focused software used to get into the dark web while often obscuring users and data.

However, EU crime agency Europol said it surely could carry out “an urgent, complex crypto-analysis to enable the tracing and identification” of the Bitcoin provider, situated in Italy.

Italian police were then able to obtain your hands on further factual statements about the suspect from the crypto-currency provider.

The suspect’s home in Milan was searched by the end of February, according to Italian media, and since the search unfolded he is then said to own called off the attack via his computer.

He’s currently under house arrest, faced with aggravated harassment and attempted personal injury, reports say.