A middle-aged man from Scotland is facing a five-term in prison for having purchased illegal firearms with Bitcoin from the dark web.
According to local police, David Mitchell, a 48-year-old from Edinburgh paid for a 9mm handgun, magazine, 150 rounds worth of ammunition, and a suppressor from the United States using about $2,750 worth of bitcoin (roughly 0.74 BTC)
However, the package was seized at the point of exit from the US, where officers informed the National Crime Agency and Police Scotland. A placebo was instead shipped in its place to Mitchell’s office by officers who then surveilled and trailed him to his house where he lives alone.
Mitchell’s lawyer told the court that Mitchell had absolutely no plans to use the firearm to hurt anybody. According to the defense, he only carried out the transaction to see if it could be done.
In his ruling, Judge Lord Pentland said:
You claim that you had no intention of causing harm to anyone but the fact remains that you went to considerable lengths to get hold of a potentially lethal weapon and ammunition. You must have appreciated that this was unlawful. For this conduct, you must be punished.
As per the police, David Mitchell refused to provide any data to help the police get to know better what motivated him to make this dark web purchase. They believe that studying the minds of criminals will help them improve their methods of fighting crime in the future.
