SINGAPORE — A married man sought the services of a hitman on the dark web to kill the new boyfriend of his ex-lover, a colleague at work. While the hit was not carried out, the man pleaded guilty to one charge of intentionally aiding and abetting murder.
In a convoluted “love story” gone very, very wrong, we have a 47-year-old married man, his 30-year-old mistress-turned-ex-lover, her 30-year-old new boyfriend, and a very real hit on the dark web that thankfully did not happen.
Singaporean Allen Vincent Hui Kim Seng was a risk management executive who had a wife and a daughter, but being married did not stop him from pursuing and continuing an affair with a Malaysian woman he was working with in April 2016.
Hui assured the woman, who knew of his marriage, that he would eventually leave his wife so that they could properly be together. The two carried on with their affair, even after Hui left the company in November 2016.
In February 2018, Hui’s mistress realised that Hui only spoke of leaving his wife but was never actually going to do it, so she decided to break things off with Hui after distancing herself from him little by little.
Regardless of the break-up, Hui and the woman still stayed in touch and spoke often. Hui, who clearly wanted her back, continued to pay for half of the rental of the flat meant for them to share (that she was living in alone) and ply her with presents.
In April 2018, the Malaysian woman met someone at a new job that she had started, and they began to date. As they continued to keep in touch and keep up with each other’s lives, she told Hui about her new boyfriend.
Hui did not take kindly to the news that she had moved on to another man, and he was consumed with jealousy. This is where the stalking began — he kept a close watch on her social media accounts, kept tabs on posts and photos she liked and shared and took screenshots of her new man.
This is where things got even darker. Hui decided to take things further, fuelled by jealousy and a desire to have the woman all to himself. He admitted to Googling the phrase “hitmen for hire” and downloaded a browser that would allow him to access the dark web, which is a network of encrypted (and often extremely disturbing) websites that cannot be accessed by using regular search engines or browsers.
On the dark web, Hui came across a website advertising hitmen and other similar services.
Hui went through several steps before deciding to order a hit to take the new boyfriend out, i.e. asking for someone to kill the man. First, Hui requested to have the new boyfriend’s right hand cut off. He then moved on to asking for acid to be poured on the man’s face, and eventually, Hui ordered the ultimate hit — murder — for which he was willing to pay several thousand US dollars.
Hui even gave detailed instructions on how the murder was to be carried out. He specifically said that it should look like a car accident and that it was to happen on May 22, 2018.
However, only 10 days before the day of the hit, on May 12, 2018, the Singaporean embassy in Washington, D.C. was contacted by a CBS journalist and informed of the hit that was scheduled for May 22.
How the journalist came by this information was not revealed by court documents.
The Singaporean embassy quickly alerted the Singapore Police Force and serious investigations into the matter found that Hui had indeed ordered the murder hit on the dark web.
The police sprung into action and arrested Hui on May 17, 2018, five days before the hit was to be carried out. The authorities ordered Hui to withdraw all bitcoins he had uploaded to his account on the dark website for payment and cancel the murder hit.
Hui pleaded guilty to one charge of intentionally aiding and abetting murder. An additional charge of criminal intimidation is also being taken into consideration.
Hui, who is still married, will be sentenced in September. /TISG