The FBI seal is seen outside the headquarters building in Washington, DC in 2016.
Yuri Gripas/AFP via Getty Images
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Yuri Gripas/AFP via Getty Images
The FBI seal is seen outside the headquarters building in Washington, DC in 2016.
Yuri Gripas/AFP via Getty Images
Federal prosecutors say they have arrested a would-be hitman after he submitted a job application on a website he believed allowed people to hire assassins for pay.
The FBI announced that Josiah Ernesto Garcia of Hermitage, Tenn., was charged with using interstate facilities in the commission of murder-for-hire.
If found guilty, the 21-year-old could face up to ten years in prison.
According to prosecutors, Garcia was looking for paid jobs to support his family and in mid-February he started searching the internet for work as a contract killer.
That’s when he found the website www.rentahitman.com.
The FBI says the site was created in 2005 to advertise a cyber security startup, but after the company went bankrupt and the site received inquiries about contract killings, its administrator converted it to a parody page .
The still-active website — which advertises that it is “safe and secure” and includes testimonials from fake customers — allows users to both enlist the services of a hitman and apply to become a hitman.
Prosecutors say Garcia applied to become a hitman and then submitted additional identification documents and a resume, indicating he had been in the Air National Guard since July 2021 and had earned the nickname “Reaper” from the his military service and from the shooting expert. .
Later he started communicating with someone and agreed to kill a person for $5,000.
The person he was talking to turned out to be an undercover FBI agent, who met Garcia in a Hendersonville, Tenn., park on Wednesday and gave him materials about the fictitious target, including photographs, as also $2,500 down payment.
Garcia agreed to the terms of the hit and then allegedly asked if he needed to provide a photo of the dead body. He was then arrested by FBI agents.
Investigators who later searched Garcia’s home said they found an AR-style rifle.
It was not clear if Garcia was being represented by an attorney.
