SINGAPORE — A married man who tried to hire a hitman on the dark web to kill his former lover’s new boyfriend in a staged car accident was sentenced to five years in jail on Wednesday (Sept 18).

In sentencing Allen Vincent Hui Kim Seng, 47, District Judge Shaiffudin Saruwan said that even though Camorra Hitmen, the website Hui believed he was using was a scam site, it did not make the crime less serious.

“The argument that the hitman-for-hire is a scam is not a mitigating factor and does not lower the overall seriousness of the offence… In my opinion, what is material is the accused’s belief at the time when he engaged the hitman.”

Hui pleaded guilty in July to abetting the murder of 30-year-old Tan Han Shen, by instigating Camorra Hitmen to kill him. Mr Tan was dating Hui’s former lover, Ms Ng Woan Man, also 30.

The conduct of Hui, who was working as a risk management executive at the time of the offence on May 22 last year, had shown that he “genuinely believed” that he was engaging a hitman to murder Mr Tan, the judge said.

“Operating on this belief, he unwaveringly and relentlessly took significant steps to achieve his objective,” District Judge Shaiffudin added.

The court heard that Hui paid more than S$8,000 in bitcoin to Camorra Hitmen for the job, but was arrested before his plan could be carried out.

The dark web contains websites that are not listed by search engines such as Google and they can only be accessed by special software. Users and website operators can thus remain anonymous and cannot be traced.

To facilitate his plot, Hui did research on how to buy and trade in bitcoin while he tried to get as many details as possible on Mr Tan, such as his car plate number.

He also kept changing what he wanted done — from incapacitating Mr Tan by cutting off his right hand, or pouring acid on his face, to killing Mr Tan in a staged car accident.

He had hesitated with the last option because it would be too expensive, so he asked for a freak accident that would leave the man crippled or in a wheelchair for life, but flipped back to wanting to kill him.

Hui’s conduct was described by the prosecution as “wanton”, “egregious” and “callous”.

The judge said that he agreed with the characterisation, stating that Hui’s culpability, which fell in the upper range of the scale, was a “key factor” in determining the sentence.

“The series of calculated steps that he took to achieve his objective showed cold-bloodedness, a high level of sophistication, and involved a high degree of planning and deliberation.”  

Hui took “painstaking care” to preserve his anonymity, he added.

District Judge Shaiffudin stressed that Hui “had not baulked at the idea” when murdering Mr Tan was suggested by the person he believed was the would-be assassin. “He had agreed to it without hesitation,” he said.

Hui’s lawyer, Mr Lee Teck Leng, had argued that his client was suffering from “clinical depression” at the time, referring to the diagnosis of a general practitioner.

However, the judge rejected the submission. “There’s no incontrovertible evidence that the accused was suffering from clinical depression,” District Judge Shaiffudin said, citing an Institute of Mental Health report that had reached a different conclusion.

“Even if I accept that he is suffering from depression, there is no cogent evidence that the depression has a causal link to the offence.” 

The five-year jail sentence “accurately reflects his culpability and society's opprobrium towards the crime”, he added.

Hui could have been jailed up to seven years and fined for abetting the murder of Mr Tan by instigating Camorra Hitmen to kill him. Another charge of criminal intimidation was taken into consideration in sentencing.