Malta: Man Tried to Purchase a Gun on the Darkweb

Yorgen Fenech, a businessman in Malta, is expected to be charged in connection with alleged darkweb firearm purchases, according to local news outlets.

Fenech, who has been accused of involvement in the murder of the journalist Caruana Galizia, allegedly paid a darkweb vendor for firearms and ammunition.

Maltese authorities revealed that Fenech had placed an order for a firearm through the Berlusconi darkweb marketplace. The buyer had used an address owned by Fenech and Fenech’s father’s name as the recipient. Police had planned on conducting a controlled delivery of the pistol but Italian law enforcement unintentionally disrupted their plan by seizing the marketplace. The Times of Malta, in one article, has reported that Fenech had attempted to purchase “a revolver, ammunition, and suppressor.” This is, of course, ludicrous; revolvers have a gap between the cylinder and the forcing cone, allowing gases to escape at the rear end of the barrel. A different article reported that Fenech had purchased “a Glock pistol and silencer, two Scorpion automatic assault rifles, some 800 rounds of ammunition, and two grenades.”

The latter purchase, as ludicrous as it sounds, seems much more reasonable than a revolver and a suppressor.

On the same day as the alleged firearm purchase, Fenech had allegedly contacted a purported hacker through the darkweb in an attempt to access an unidentified target’s cellphone. Assistant Attorney General Philip Galea Farrugia said that Fenech had purchased everything with Bitcoin.

A local investigation is focusing on one $50,000 transaction made from one of Fenech’s wallets in January 2019 to a vendor on Wall Street Market. Law enforcement has not yet established what Fenech had attempted to purchase for $50,000.

The Times of Malta describes the investigation and marketplace:

In particular, the police investigation is also looking into attempted purchases that have been traced between Fenech and traders on a now-defunct site, which is known as Wall Street Market, a trading platform tied to global terrorist groups.

Naturally.

Fenech is allegedly also linked to another transaction on either Berlusconi or Wall Street Market. In April 2019, a customer on one of those marketplaces purchased one gram of the poison potassium cyanide for $2,098. Law enforcement appears to have read messages between the buyer and seller and learned that the buyer had provided the shipping address of an address owned by Fenech.

Fenech has been in custody since November 2019 in connection with the murder of Caruana Galizia. Authorities believe Fenech had orchestrated the hit and that investigation is ongoing.

Law enforcement has an uncanny ability to detect the purchase of weapons from vendors on the darkweb. Of course, much of this has to do with the fact that law enforcement officers pretend to be weapon vendors.