A New York woman has been indicted for allegedly attempting to hire a hitman to murder her lover's spouse and adult daughter, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York announced Monday.
Yue Zhou, 42, was scheduled to be arraigned Monday afternoon on an indictment charging her with murder-for-hire. She was arrested in Virginia on June 5, and was transferred to New York last week.
"As alleged, the defendant took affirmative steps to hire a hit man to carry out the ruthless killing of the wife of her romantic partner," U.S. Attorney Breon Peace said in a statement. "Her depraved plan was only thwarted because the web site she used to set up the murder-for-hire was a scam. Although the scheme involved newer technologies like the Internet and Bitcoin, the end result would have been age-old cold-blooded murder."
According to the indictment, between March 25, 2019 and April 4, 2019, Zhou used a purported murder-for-hire website on the dark web to hire a hitman to murder her lover's wife. To pay for the murder, Zhou allegedly contracted with a Bitcoin exchange service in Ukraine and provided approximately $5,000 in cash to a middleman in Brooklyn, to have it converted to Bitcoin.
After sending the payment, Zhou provided details about the intended victim, including her address, work schedule, and the best times to target her so that her husband would have an alibi.
Later, Zhou tried to use the same website to hire a hitman to kill her lover's adult daughter. In February 2021, Zhou sent a text message to the daughter's neighbor offering $10,000 and sexual favors in exchange for killing the daughter and disposing of her body in a lake.
"Zhou was not aware at the time of her scheme that the Website was a scam operated by a third party and there was no actual hitman for hire," the U.S. attorney's office said.
"Yue Zhou is accused of offering cryptocurrency, cash, and even sexual favors during her discussions related to having her then-partner's spouse and adult daughter killed. Little did she know, the website she allegedly thought she was using to solicit a hitman was a farce, and the crimes of which she is accused soon caught up to her," said Homeland Security Investigations New York Special Agent in Charge Arvelo. "I commend HSI New York's El Dorado Task Force Cyber Division, Customs and Border Protection, the New York Police Department, and the Eastern District of New York for their unwavering commitment to utilizing their state-of-the-art methods to secure justice on behalf of New Yorkers."
--with reporting by TMX
