[HN Gopher] A man who accidentally started an assassin hiring we...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       A man who accidentally started an assassin hiring website
        
       Author : 4ndrewl
       Score  : 218 points
       Date   : 2021-12-24 22:41 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
        
       | thysultan wrote:
       | Accidentally started an honeypot for amateur assassins and
       | assassin connoisseurs.
        
       | ipsin wrote:
       | "So far, nearly 150 lives have been saved as a direct result of
       | the site and my actions."
       | 
       | I get that those 150 lives were all at risk, because a not-too-
       | bright someone wanted them killed, but... I'm also curious how
       | many of those would manage to kill their targets if they weren't
       | intercepted?
       | 
       | This isn't an argument against intervention, since they
       | demonstrated an intent to kill. But I'm legitimately wondering
       | how often people with grudges connect with actual contract
       | killers.
        
         | MomoXenosaga wrote:
         | My country is turning into a European Mexico because the middle
         | class needs their cocaine to get through life. Twenty year olds
         | are getting payed just 20k to kill someone.
         | 
         | The funny thing is that all these drive bye gang bangers are
         | all invariably caught by the police and then spend the rest of
         | their life in jail. Don't underestimate the stupidity of man.
        
           | cosmodisk wrote:
           | I once had a chat with my colleague about how the country he
           | was born in has changed over the last 20 years. He expressed
           | concerns about safety, gang crimes,etc. Yet he was the one
           | consuming white powder that is responsible for majority of
           | those crimes he's concerned about...
        
             | johnisgood wrote:
             | The War on Drugs has failed a long time ago though, and I
             | thought it was obvious. Such crimes exist because of the
             | War on Drugs. That said, legalization is not enough. If the
             | taxes are too high (as it happened to be the case in
             | California for weed), then you will still have a black
             | market for this white powder.
             | 
             | There is black market here for meat, too.
        
             | rosndo wrote:
             | The powder cannot be responsible for those crimes, if it
             | was, the government could solve the problem overnight by
             | simply allowing a legal supply of white powder. And if
             | that's the case, how is the government not to blame?
        
               | pessimizer wrote:
               | Are you sure it's the fault of the people who drove the
               | value of inexpensive to produce substances used in tiny
               | amounts up by multiple orders of magnitude?
        
           | FartyMcFarter wrote:
           | Which country is this?
        
             | rosndo wrote:
             | None, MomoXenosaga has no idea how bad things are in Mexico
             | and is just regurgitating alarmist talking points of right-
             | wing populists.
        
               | not_really wrote:
               | Spoken like a true left-wing populist...
        
               | rosndo wrote:
               | Spoken like a realist. I've frequently interacted with
               | the worst parts of Europe, my Telegram is constantly
               | spammed with ads for guns in Benelux (FGC-9 really
               | booming lately). I've stayed in the "ghetto" in Sweden
               | where shootings happen on a weekly basis, spent a month
               | in Transnistria, sat down for lunch with separatist
               | fighters in Ukraine.
               | 
               | Nowhere in Europe does the situation come anywhere close
               | to being as fucked up as in Mexico, not even in the
               | literal warzones.
        
         | pessimizer wrote:
         | That's the same problem as with all of the FBI terrorist
         | entrapment. What if people have an honest desire to kill, but
         | lack the intelligence, means, and/or motivation?
         | 
         | Do you give them ideas, pretend to give them the means, and
         | encourage (or even nag/pressure) them? I mean, we do, but is
         | that a good thing? Especially seeing as while we're doing it
         | we're giving them ideas, we may accidentally give them the
         | means (or at least an idea of how to find the means
         | themselves), and in a time crunch to show results the pressure
         | that we put on them to carry out the act may actually become
         | threatening?
         | 
         | More applicable to this specific case, which is obviously why
         | the guy is sensitive about it, is that people sending
         | unsolicited requests to murder people to a site called
         | rentahitman.com are very stupid. They're the _least likely to
         | be able to carry it out,_ although I acknowledge that 's
         | probably somewhat offset because they may also be too stupid to
         | understand the probability or consequences of failing to get
         | away with it.
         | 
         | The writer sees the same thing, which is why they gloss over
         | the fact that he has put in effort to dress the site as a
         | website where you order hitmen online, with splashes of satire
         | to signal to people of normal intelligence and ability to
         | detect sarcasm that it is a joke. It is never mentioned
         | explicitly that he's dressing the site that way now until it's
         | implicated by the discussion of the "jokes and clues to show it
         | wasn't the real deal" halfway through the article.
         | 
         | Before I got to that, I thought he was a guy who had an
         | innocent site marketing himself as a network contractor who
         | would get sucked into the nefarious plans of stupid strangers
         | because of his domain name. Afterwards, I decided that he's a
         | guy who got sucked into one nefarious plan of one stupid
         | stranger, got her busted, and loved being the center of
         | attention and having his ego stroked by law enforcement. To get
         | that feeling back, again and again, he turned his site into an
         | phishing expedition for people stupid enough to think click-to-
         | murder could be real. This is the same as Nigerian prince scams
         | that intentionally use bad grammar and spelling to limit the
         | replies to suckers. It's a confidence scam filtering the crowd
         | down to the marks.
         | 
         | The moral hazard I see is that if you sold the site
         | convincingly, in a way that could trick people of closer to
         | normal intelligence, that might result in danger for you.
         | Somebody normal tricked into prison by this might send a real
         | hit man after you (or maybe a lawyer.) So instead, he focuses
         | on people like the moron he started with, who don't scare him
         | at all. If they don't scare him, are they really scary?
        
           | syshum wrote:
           | >>Do you give them ideas, pretend to give them the means, and
           | encourage (or even nag/pressure) them? I mean, we do, but is
           | that a good thing?
           | 
           | All of that should be considered entrapment, and law
           | enforcement should not be doing it
           | 
           | for FBI, and other law enforcement I have a pretty simple
           | standard, that many people do not agree with. law enforcement
           | should not be allowed to break the law to enforce the law. We
           | however allow them to do so all time.
           | 
           | In relation to this story, it is simple. If you just put up a
           | site like this, people then contact you, and as law
           | enforcement you setup a meeting let them incriminate
           | themselves no problems, you did not break the law, it was
           | unsolicited by you, etc.
           | 
           | Flip this though and say you embed an agent at a support
           | group of some kind, this agent then prompts a person with "I
           | know someone that could take care of that for you" after
           | establishing a relationship with the person, then over the
           | course of months they entice the person into committing a
           | crime. That is where the line is cross IMO. That is where law
           | enforcement is today
        
             | pessimizer wrote:
             | > All of that should be considered entrapment, and law
             | enforcement should not be doing it
             | 
             | Not in courts in the USA. Entrapment is when you convince
             | someone to do something they wouldn't do if not for your
             | encouragement. This is painted as making it easy for
             | someone to do what they want to do. It's why they target
             | schizophrenics and idiots.
             | 
             | > law enforcement should not be allowed to break the law to
             | enforce the law. We however allow them to do so all time.
             | 
             | That's not a simple standard. If we allow law enforcement
             | to break some laws legally, they aren't breaking the law.
             | It's against the law for you to break my laptop to pieces,
             | but it's not against to law for me to break my laptop to
             | pieces.
        
               | syshum wrote:
               | >>Not in courts in the USA.
               | 
               | hmmm I wonder if that is why I stated "SHOULD BE" not
               | that is was. Clearly the indication was that I believe
               | the current position by the court system is wrong, and
               | that we have allowed law enforcement to much latitude in
               | this area. That we as a society to seek to more tightly
               | control what law enforcement is allowed to do in the name
               | of "law and order", then maybe we would not have the
               | clear abuse of power we see on the streets every day.
               | 
               | >>If we allow law enforcement to break some laws legally,
               | they aren't breaking the law.
               | 
               | Again words matter, clearly I should SHOULD NOT, again
               | indicating my bleif that there should not be exemptions
               | in the law for law enforcement like they have today. We
               | as a society would suffer far less abuse from law
               | enforcement if we did not create a separate class of
               | individual called "law enforcement" that we exempt from
               | the laws that everyone else has to obey. Again to be
               | clear this is a position I believe society SHOULD adopt,
               | not that I believe it has, thus commenting "well under
               | the law today...." is pointless as that is not the
               | conversation. I am fully aware that today we do exempt
               | law enforcement from the very laws they are to enforce
               | upon others. I find that to be unethical and untenable
               | 
               | >>It's against the law for you to break my laptop to
               | pieces, but it's not against to law for me to break my
               | laptop to pieces.
               | 
               | That is a ridiculous analogy, that that then some how
               | conclude that we are all property of the government, and
               | by extension law enforcement? That some how property
               | rights apply to abuses by government agent? Really?
        
         | BrianHenryIE wrote:
         | Clearly we need a double-blind study.
        
           | CaptainJustin wrote:
           | I feel sorry for the control group
        
             | littlestymaar wrote:
             | Being part of the control group often sucks: what if you're
             | bing given a placebo instead of a revolutionary cancer
             | drug.
        
               | avalys wrote:
               | In almost all such circumstances, the control group is
               | still given a "real" cancer drug that has already been
               | proven, and the study looks for the new drug to
               | demonstrate an improvement versus the current state-of-
               | the-art.
        
               | niekmaas wrote:
               | There is no way for us to know if the drug is a
               | "revulotionary cancer drug" if we don't test it in a
               | double blinded randomized controlled trial (RCT). Indeed
               | it would be disappointing the later find out you were
               | treated with the placebo, but so many drugs or other
               | interventions have to potential to be revolutionary but
               | fail to really change the clinical decision making later
               | on.
        
               | amcoastal wrote:
               | I guess I never understood placebo trials in a lot of
               | medical situations. Like what we are discussing here, a
               | "revolutionary cancer drug", why even bother letting
               | people die giving them placebos? Its cancer. Its not like
               | you can placebo effect the cancer away. You don't need a
               | double blind trial to see if the drug stops the cancer,
               | you just give people the drug and observe the cancer! I
               | feel like our medical system is pretty wack. Or maybe I'm
               | entirely wrong and you can placebo cancer away.
        
               | setr wrote:
               | A common medical joke:
               | 
               | A cold takes 7 days to resolve on its own. With modern
               | medicine, it will take merely a week !
               | 
               | The placebo is not to eliminate the cancer, it's to
               | guarantee that we know the "normal" path without the
               | drug, and gives a comparison point between the control
               | and the target. The fundamental problem is that cancer
               | can just resolve/improve on its own, or rather without
               | intervention... so just poking and watching isn't
               | sufficient proof of the drug's efficacy
        
               | ithkuil wrote:
               | Yes.
               | 
               | Yet it's so hard to have a good intuition about that.
               | We're wired to think in terms of action and agency and be
               | morally judged on its basis. This is deeply rooted in
               | human psychology and acts as a foundation for many of our
               | behaviours, from religion to vaccine hesitancy.
               | 
               | Ask anybody I'd they think it's more likely that a
               | disease just went away on its own or if there was some
               | reason, "something".
               | 
               | Most people will tell it's more likely something
               | happened, a miracle of some kind for some reasons. Deep
               | down there is always a reason for things to happen, but
               | "your cells in your body did a good job" just doesn't
               | sound right.
               | 
               | Even when people accept the idea that the body can fix
               | itself pretty well, they tend to swing the pendulum too
               | much and assume the body can do just anything ....
               | provided you do (agency) the right motions (potions,
               | talismans, right diet, right prayers...)
        
               | daedalus_f wrote:
               | That is not how randomised controlled trials in
               | conditions like cancer work. They are almost always a
               | riff on new drug + current best treatment regime vs
               | current best regime. Sometimes a drug within a regime is
               | swapped with the new agent and the two compared in terms
               | of survival and toxicity.
               | 
               | Progress in cancer treatment is almost always achieved by
               | incremental tweaking of how we treat it. There are a few
               | revolutionary agents based on specific disease mechanisms
               | in certain cancers (e.g. imatinib [1]) but these are in
               | the minority - cancer is protean.
               | 
               | [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imatinib
        
               | mellavora wrote:
               | or what if the revolution is lead by Robespierre?
        
             | hawk_ wrote:
             | It's ok the study will be conducted with mice.
        
         | ufmace wrote:
         | That's what I was thinking. Yeah anybody who tries to actually
         | hire a hit man through that site ought to be checked out.
         | Claiming that lives were saved seems a bit over the top though
         | - if you're trying to use a random website nobody has heard of
         | to hire a hit man, the odds seem mighty slim that you'll ever
         | find somebody prepared to actually kill someone.
        
           | [deleted]
        
           | dragonwriter wrote:
           | > if you're trying to use a random website nobody has heard
           | of to hire a hit man
           | 
           | To be fair, that's probably less crazy than using a popular
           | website everyone has heard of for the same purpose.
        
             | bryanrasmussen wrote:
             | Obviously the popularity of the site can be both a benefit
             | and a detriment, a very popular site increases the chance
             | that it has hitmen among its users, but it also increases
             | the chance of narcs. We can see therefore that is what is
             | needed is a popular site with the ability to deliver
             | targeted messages to the people most likely to be hitmen.
             | Finally this story shows the kind of problems you can
             | encounter trying to hire hitmen through sites with a
             | conscientious and moral leadership, that should be avoided.
             | 
             | Use Facebook.
        
         | lmilcin wrote:
         | You can argue that actually more lives have been saved because
         | after a public stunt like that a lot of potential murderers
         | will be deterred from searching for a killer for hire on the
         | Internet.
         | 
         | It will also make more people aware than just searching for
         | killer makes them liable if somebody thinks they were serious
         | about this.
        
           | ummonk wrote:
           | "It will also make more people aware than just searching for
           | killer makes them liable if somebody thinks they were serious
           | about this."
           | 
           | Not sure that's true - if you click through to the CNN
           | article (https://edition.cnn.com/2021/12/12/us/hireahitman-
           | website-cr...), the police will set up a meet and check
           | whether the people actually want to go through with hiring a
           | hitman.
        
             | lmilcin wrote:
             | This is one of proving somebody is serious. It is not
             | required, though.
             | 
             | In general, Police will set up a meet because it is much
             | stronger and difficult to refute proof. And they also don't
             | have anything to loose - their case cannot be weakened by
             | the suspect refusing to come to a meet.
        
         | rlt wrote:
         | Yeah, I'd like to see the stats on how many mentally ill or
         | cognitively disabled people he unnecessarily had sent to
         | prison.
        
           | ghusbands wrote:
           | If someone is trying to get people killed, it may be that
           | they need help, but other people certainly need protection
           | from them, which is meant to be part of the point of the
           | prison system.
           | 
           | Also, equating a desire to assassinate with being mentally
           | ill or cognitively disabled is doing a disservice to the
           | majority of mentally ill or cognitively disabled people who
           | do know it's wrong to kill people. I doubt there's a clear
           | correlation between desire to kill people and being mentally
           | ill or cognitively disabled.
        
             | pessimizer wrote:
             | That's not the equation. If you try to fulfill your desire
             | to assassinate by clicking a payment option on
             | rentahitman.com, you are failing to understand the
             | likelihood this plan will be successful. This is absolutely
             | a sign of being mentally ill or cognitively disabled.
        
               | tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
               | A mentally ill or cognitively disabled person is still
               | able to operate a knife, blunt weapon, and if they can
               | get one, a gun.
        
           | bigiain wrote:
           | He hasn't sent anybody to prison.
           | 
           | He's referred some requests to law enforcement, who've than
           | taken whatever action they deem necessary. (Admittedly in
           | some jurisdictions for some demographics, there might not be
           | much distinction there.)
           | 
           | If your angry 13 year old brother or cognitively impaired
           | cousin that you didn't get a PS5 for xmas emailed this guy,
           | it's spectacularly unlikely the cops would send him to
           | prison.
        
             | watwut wrote:
             | It is actually more likely the cognitively impaired would
             | end up in prison. They people sux even more then usual at
             | navigating criminal system. Same for kids.
             | 
             | That being said, the " 13 year old brother or cognitively
             | impaired cousin that you didn't get a PS5 for" are an
             | actual threat and those around them do need intervention.
             | Not reporting them amounts to enabling.
        
               | enkid wrote:
               | Right, the problem isn't the guy reporting the people,
               | it's some of the stuff leading up to it and after it.
        
         | gumby wrote:
         | While I agree I give him a pass: he could simply abandon the
         | site but instead continues to run it. If that thought motivates
         | him, why not?
         | 
         | Likely some of the people would ultimately try to do the deed
         | on their own. Probably a small number, but a bunch of tragedies
         | were likely forestalled, even if the seeker is not arrested but
         | receives help. Which is probably what happens for people
         | outside the US.
        
           | sonicggg wrote:
           | That dude just seems like he has too much time on his hands.
        
             | rolleiflex wrote:
             | Sure, but many good deeds and about all of science pre 20th
             | century was made by people who had too much time on their
             | hands.
        
             | spoonjim wrote:
             | Everyone gets 24 hours a day. He's doing something
             | presumably useful. Are you?
        
               | vntok wrote:
               | Why do you think his use of time is presumably useful?
        
         | account-5 wrote:
         | They're using the same argument the copyright industry use
         | against pirates.
         | 
         | Instead of this person saying they saved 150 lives, the
         | copyright industry say the artists lost X amount making the
         | assumption each pirate, given no other option, would pay for
         | the copy the pirated.
         | 
         | I often am curious how many of those pirates would have
         | actually paid.
        
       | teh_infallible wrote:
       | If you think about it for even a little bit, it becomes obvious
       | that no one would open a legit assassin-for-hire service online.
       | Think of logistics of this:
       | 
       | Your assassin has to travel to some random city somewhere and
       | take all the risks involved with killing someone, OR..
       | 
       | They rip you off. What recourse would you have against a real
       | paid killer? And what help would you get from law enforcement?
        
         | jeroenhd wrote:
         | Meal delivery services seem to do quite fine online. What you
         | need for a hitman-for-hire scheme is a broad network of
         | assassins, preferably paid as little as they will possibly work
         | for, and certain availability areas. You enter an address and
         | it comes up with a list of hitmen and their preferred murdering
         | solution, sort by price, or show a page that your service is
         | not available at the specified location yet.
         | 
         | It can be done, though for obvious reasons law enforcement
         | would end your operation in days if not hours.
        
         | notimetorelax wrote:
         | Well... you'd be ripping off somebody who was ready to kill
         | someone. Might not end well in the long run.
        
         | Hjfrf wrote:
         | All you need is a security deposit from the assassins before
         | they start taking jobs.
         | 
         | Plumbers already have a bond system like that, for example.
         | 
         | If there are enough hitmen, they can just pick up jobs near
         | them.
         | 
         | It's not impossible logistically.
        
       | yob28 wrote:
       | Lol " he had just saved the lives of three people" typical crap
       | from the guardian. No doubt almost none of these people would
       | have come to harm from these keyboard warriors. It's amazing that
       | anyone reads this rag for anything other than a joke
        
         | lmilcin wrote:
         | After so many referrals, it is not hard to believe that at
         | least some of these people would actually go through with a
         | murder one way or another.
         | 
         | So, yes, I believe this person saved some lives.
        
           | yob28 wrote:
           | Hence "almost none", it's almost like you can't read
        
       | avaika wrote:
       | What if I submit a request on behalf of someone else? Will this
       | someone else get jailed?
        
       | varajelle wrote:
       | This reminds me of another story about fake hitmen
       | https://www.wired.co.uk/article/kill-list-dark-web-hitmen
        
       | rootusrootus wrote:
       | If he's never going to use it for anything legitimate, perhaps
       | just give it over to the FBI and they could take away the satire
       | from the page and make it look convincing. Forward the
       | information directly to the local field office automatically,
       | without having to rely on a private citizen to make the
       | connection.
        
         | rocqua wrote:
         | If the FBI is running it, the defense 'it was entrapment'
         | becomes quite a bit easier.
        
           | wdevanny wrote:
           | IANAL, but I don't believe that would qualify as entrapment.
           | 
           | https://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=633
        
         | trompetenaccoun wrote:
         | But it's all about saving lives (and catching mentally
         | challenged/ill people while filtering out serious would be
         | murderers, apparently).
        
           | jliptzin wrote:
           | If anyone is wondering why criminals always seem so dumb it's
           | because the smart ones are getting away with it.
        
             | watwut wrote:
             | Smart criminals are sitting in boardrooms and generally
             | doing economical crime.
        
             | yeetaccount4 wrote:
             | Last I heard, about half of homicide cases in the US go
             | unsolved. It's probably not the smart half getting caught,
             | usually.
        
               | tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
               | Even that is the wrong statistic to look at.
               | 
               | The number of homicides that go _undetected_ in the first
               | place is at least as important, if not more. In Germany,
               | police claim that they solve 94% of homicides, but there
               | are estimates that around half don 't get discovered...
        
       | LeonB wrote:
       | Good site, but something of a so-called "taxation on stupidity".
        
       | new_guy wrote:
       | Openly doxxing himself to people actively trying to hire killers
       | doesn't seem too smart.
        
       | Stratoscope wrote:
       | I recently submitted a request on this site for a small service.
       | 
       | Reformatted for readability here, and a few details redacted to
       | preserve my illusion of privacy:                 Rent-A-Hitman
       | Service Request (HIPPA Compliant)              Your Name: Michael
       | Geary       I certify I'm an: Adult - Over 18 Years Old
       | Your eMail Address: mg@ok.mg       Your Phone Number: [redacted]
       | Your Address (For Field Operative Use Only): [redacted]
       | Field Operative Contact Preference: Email       Enter Your
       | Desired CODE/SAFE Word or Phrase (Optional): Tony       Relation
       | to Intended Target: Fan       Target's Name: James Gandolfini
       | Address Where Service Requested:         Holsten's Brookdale
       | Confectionery         1063 Broad Street         Bloomfield, New
       | Jersey  07003       What is the reason for contacting us? James
       | Gandolfini is dead.       Describe what services you would like
       | performed:         James died tragically at the age of 51. I want
       | you to bring him back to life.         I last saw him at the
       | address listed above.         I sent a modest donation to your
       | PayPal account to help you consider my request.         Guido, if
       | you can perform this small service, there is a hundred boxes of
       | ziti in it for you.       How did you hear about Rent-A-Hitman
       | (Paste Link - For Marketing Purposes Only):
       | https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/12/us/hireahitman-website-cracks-
       | crimes-cec/index.html
       | 
       | References for anyone unfamiliar with two coded messages in my
       | request...
       | 
       | "a hundred boxes of ziti": In _The Sopranos_ , a "box of ziti" is
       | a code word for $1000. "Tony tells Christopher to get "five boxes
       | of ziti" for David Scatino. In the morning, Christopher tells
       | Tony that David is down "forty-five boxes of ziti"." -- _The
       | Sopranos Wiki_
       | 
       | "a small service": "Don Vito Corleone was a man to whom everybody
       | came for help, and never were they disappointed. He made no empty
       | promises, nor the craven excuse that his hands were tied by more
       | powerful forces in the world than himself. It was not necessary
       | that he be your friend, it was not even important that you had no
       | means with which to repay him. Only one thing was required. That
       | you, you yourself, proclaim your friendship. And then, no matter
       | how poor or powerless the supplicant, Don Corleone would take
       | that man's troubles to his heart. And he would let nothing stand
       | in the way to a solution of that man's woe. His reward?
       | Friendship, the respectful title of "Don," and sometimes the more
       | affectionate salutation of "Godfather." And perhaps, to show
       | respect only, never for profit, some humble gift--a gallon of
       | homemade wine or a basket of peppered taralles specially baked to
       | grace his Christmas table. It was understood, it was mere good
       | manners, to proclaim that you were in his debt and that he had
       | the right to call upon you at any time to redeem your debt by
       | some small service." --Mario Puzo, _The Godfather_
        
       | czhu12 wrote:
       | Doesn't the publication of this article kinda mess up this
       | scheme?
        
         | sundvor wrote:
         | I somehow get the feeling the cross section of Guardian/HN
         | readers and the kind of people likely to jump into a site like
         | this isn't exceedingly large.
        
       | mdavis6890 wrote:
       | I feel that there are nearly 150 frustrated law enforcement
       | officers who attempted to bust a hit man by pretending to hire
       | one.
        
       | gregw134 wrote:
       | The problem with making it sarcastic is I can imagine someone
       | them just to run with the joke.
        
         | ant6n wrote:
         | I guess then it's up to the judiciary to judge the joke?
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | abricot wrote:
       | He should add a "career" section, then he would help catch a new
       | group of people.
        
         | JulianMorrison wrote:
         | It's there!
        
       | throaway46546 wrote:
       | https://archive.ph/XcX7e
        
       | framecowbird wrote:
       | Is this entrapment? He isn't coercing people to commit a crime,
       | but he is encouraging it
        
         | nl wrote:
         | No.
         | 
         | A) he's not law enforcement.
         | 
         | B) entrapment laws vary by jurisdiction, but I'm unaware of any
         | where a private citizen sending in information about someone
         | contacting them to commit a crime is problematic.
        
           | pessimizer wrote:
           | What if you have a longstanding relationship with law
           | enforcement, and you run a site called "Contact Me, I Will
           | Commit A Crime For You"?
        
             | tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
             | My understanding is that even if police were running that
             | site it would still be fine, unless the site is actively
             | reaching out to people encouraging them.
             | 
             | Standing on the corner selling drugs to people who ask: ok
             | 
             | Standing on the corner, asking people "hey, wanna buy some
             | weed": borderline but probably still not entrapment
             | 
             | Standing on the corner, asking people "hey, wanna buy some
             | weed", then pestering those who say "no thanks":
             | Entrapment.
             | 
             | An undercover agent becoming a friend with someone, then
             | pressuring them to buy weed for him even though that person
             | really doesn't want to: very clearly entrapment.
        
       | mlcrypto wrote:
       | Why is he not locked up like Ross Ulbricht then?
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | KindOne wrote:
         | The owner of the website does not provide actual services.
         | 
         | Better article:
         | 
         | https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/rent-a...
        
           | gumby wrote:
           | So you're saying he's committing fraud?
        
             | CaptainJustin wrote:
             | It's a grey area
        
             | sterlind wrote:
             | It's only fraud if it leads to money changing hands. Also,
             | contracts for illegal goods and services aren't enforceable
             | at least in civil court - you can't take your dealer to
             | small claims for selling you baby powder, for example. The
             | best you can do is shatter their kneecaps.
        
         | olliej wrote:
         | because he wasn't trying to run&profit from hitmen? because he
         | wasn't laundering money? Etc
         | 
         | Also this guy just forwards details to police.
        
         | duxup wrote:
         | > Now, Bob Innes hands people over to the police for trying to
         | have their enemies killed
        
         | dijonman2 wrote:
         | He is an expert navigator of the legal system
        
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