Zurich Court Sharply Increases Sentence in Darknet Murder-for-Hire Case

The Zurich Cantonal Court has sentenced a 55-year-old Swiss man to 11 years in prison for attempted incitement to murder, after he tried to hire a darknet killer to murder his ex-wife. The court largely confirmed the lower court's verdict from Bezirksgericht Affoltern but raised the sentence significantly, from five years to eleven.

Between December 2022 and February 2023, the man searched the darknet for someone willing to kill his ex-wife, the mother of their two children, and even transferred funds to an anonymous crypto account. The murder never happened: unbeknownst to him, he had been communicating with a scam website monitored by British law enforcement. He was arrested in February 2023 and remains in custody.

The accused denied everything throughout, but the court said the circumstantial evidence — particularly the forensic IT analysis — spoke an "unmistakable language." The presiding judge described the plan as "diabolical," carried out with extraordinary coldness and an alarming lack of scruples, intended as a "final line drawn under a difficult relationship." A mysterious third party named "Tom," whom the accused blamed during the investigation, was dismissed by both courts as a fabrication, with no traces of hacking found.

The Cantonal Court found the lower court's sentence reduction too generous: the fact that the murder was never carried out wasn't thanks to the accused, who had no idea the website was fake. The prosecution had pushed for 15 years; the defence argued the British-run scam site violated principles of good faith and demanded an acquittal — unsuccessfully.

The verdict isn't yet final and can still be appealed to the Federal Supreme Court.