Dark Web Ammunition Purchase: Scottish Software Engineer Got Five Years Jail

A software engineer aged 48 years old belonging from Scotland was sentenced to five years in the prison after being caught red handed trying to purchase a handgun (ammunition purchase) online via dark web from the United States. The accused has been identified as David Mitchell, who spent around £2,000 of Cryptocurrency on 150 rounds of 9mm ammunition, a silencer and a Clock 9mm with magazine. The case of David Mitchell has been regarded as the first major success for the new Organized Crime Partnership, who aims to build relationship between the National Crime Agency (NCA) and the Scotland cops.

The U.S. border agents found out the hidden weapon in a package that has been addressed to Mitchell in his office address in Dunfermline, Fife. The Organized Crime Partnership has conducted an operation in Scotland that has put him under surveillance as a fake package was sent to his workplace. The Police Scotland Specialist Crime Division’s Chief Superintendent Mr. Gerry McLean did not provide any details regarding what the weapon is made of or what it looked like. But he confirmed that Mitchell wan completely convinced of the package as the original one that he has ordered through dark web. Mitchell signed the package while the officers followed him. He drove off to his residence. As soon as he entered the house, the officers entered the house with a search warrant and found the package opened in the kitchen and the fake firearm was seized from under a couch in his living room.

No information regarding the motivation behind ammunition purchase, opening the dark web and operating it was revealed by the accused but the court supposes that an obsession to find out if the transactions could be possible through the dark web has led the accused to the dark web. The defence stated that Mitchell bears a history of depression and other behavioural difficulties and he has no previous record of conviction.