Suspected of recruiting a dark web henchman to cripple his ex-fiancee

He had imagined a scenario worthy of a real thriller. Italian police announced Wednesday that they thwarted a “nightmarish” plan by arresting a man who wanted his ex-fiancée to be crippled and disfigured with acid by a henchman engaged in the dark web.

The suspect, a computer expert in his 40s and working for a large corporation, has been placed under house arrest and charged with attempted grievous bodily harm and harassment.

An aggression planned “down to the last detail”

Italian police said they began investigating in February, after being alerted via Interpol by colleagues from another European country who had detected suspicious conversations on the dark web. Planning the assault “in great detail”, the suspect allegedly wanted his former girlfriend to be crippled, forced into a wheelchair. He had agreed to pay the henchman a “considerable sum in bitcoins”, police said.

According to the AGI news agency, which cites court documents, the henchman should have received a total of nearly 10,000 euros. He should have thrown the acid in the ex-fiancée’s face but without touching her eyes and it should have looked like a burglary.