Murder-for-Hire plot: Man admits using dark web in scheme to kill girlfriend

GWINNETT COUNTY, Ga. - A Gwinnett County doctor will serve seven years in prison after pleading guilty to a murder-for-hire plot.

James Wan was sentenced on Thursday for the sinister scheme, which investigators say was orchestrated on the dark web.

Wan's exact sentence was seven years and three months in prison, followed by two years of supervised release. In October 2023, he pleaded guilty to one count of using a facility of interstate commerce in the commission of murder-for-hire.

In a release sent to FOX 5, U.S. Attorney Ryan Buchanan wrote, "By using the dark web to conceal his search for someone to kill his girlfriend, Wan expected to evade detection, even going as far as using cryptocurrency to pay for the crime."

Investigators say the cryptocurrency used was thousands of dollars' worth of Bitcoin.

"Cryptocurrency and the dark web have been a common marriage probably since the beginning," said FBI Special Agent Daniel Polk.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) would not comment specifically on this case, but FOX 5 spoke with Special Agent Polk about the use of cryptocurrency by criminals.

"It's not a crime to use cryptocurrency. However, in using it with crimes, we have seen cryptocurrency is perceived by criminals to be more of an anonymous means of transferring funds for payment or services," said Polk. "If you're seeking to have some perceived sense of anonymity, you're not going to go to your local bank and take out a wire transfer where there's security cameras recording you. You're probably going to look for a quick, easy method that has some more sense of anonymity involved, which is where we do see cryptocurrency being used quite frequently amongst, you know, criminals."

According to the Georgia Composite Medical Board's website, Wan's license was listed as "lapsed" online and was set to expire in October 2022.