According to Wu, a Tennessee woman named Melody Sasser was sentenced to more than eight years in prison for using Bitcoin to plan a murder for hire. She paid nearly $10,000 in Bitcoin through the dark web to hire a killer to murder an Alabama resident and disguised it as an accident to avoid detection.

Investigators found evidence at her home, including communications with dark web hit sites and Bitcoin addresses. She was sentenced to 100 months in prison and ordered to pay more than $5,000 in restitution to the victims.