March 18, 2022 - SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Kristy Lynn Felkins, 37, of Fallon, Nevada, pleaded guilty on March 17, 2022, to the use of interstate commerce facilities in the commission of murder-for-hire, U.S. Attorney Phillip A. Talbert announced.

According to court documents, Felkins admitted that she sent 12 bitcoin (valued at approximately $5,000 at the time) to a dark web hitman website, known as Besa Mafia, to have her ex-husband murdered. From February to May 2016, Felkins regularly communicated with the administrator of the site to pay and arrange for the murder of her ex-husband. Felkins gave the administrator the specific location of her husband in an attempt to have him murdered.

Besa Mafia operated as a “hidden service” on the Tor network, which is an anonymizing internet service that is known informally as the “dark web.” The Besa Mafia website was in fact a scam, and Felkins was not refunded the bitcoin she sent to the site, which is no longer in operation.

This case is the product of an investigation by Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), as part of the Northern California Illicit Digital Economy (NCIDE) Task Force, consisting of agents from HSI, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, and the Drug Enforcement Administration. The NCIDE Task Force is a joint, federal task force focused on targeting all forms of dark web and cryptocurrency criminal activity in the Eastern District of California. Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul Hemesath is prosecuting the case.

Felkins is scheduled to be sentenced by U.S. District Judge Troy L. Nunley on June 16, 2022. Felkins faces a maximum statutory penalty of 10 years in prison. The actual sentence, however, will be determined at the discretion of the court after consideration of any applicable statutory factors and the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, which take into account a number of variables.

Source: DOJ Release