Simon Says – Musings of a Technology CTO

This week, the Central District Court of California saw Pavel Valkovich, a convicted identity theft mastermind, plead guilty to trying to hire a contract killer to ‘off’ one of the witnesses against him. Valkovich, originally found guilty  of trying to transfer $440,000 from a victims bank account (via PayPal fraud) will face a statutory 50 years in the clink – 20 years for the murder-for-hire and 30 years for the fraud?

Shouldn’t those two be the other way around perhaps?

Valkovich was quite specific about the manner of the execution, requesting the hit man use a silencer and to kill the informant in a drive-by shooting.

The cost of the contract? “A Pic plus 10” – ie a picture of the victim, and $10,000.

While Valkovich was behind bars, he also discussed coaching another witness to lie on his behalf by claiming the informant provided the witness with drugs, made improper sexual advances, and planted evidence.

To top it all, once these nefarious plans were discovered, Valkovich was relocated to a different correctional establishment (San Bernardino County Jail), where he approached a third individual and asked him to kill the original informant and the previous hit man. He promised $40,000 for the deed and provided information on the men, their appearance, residences and cars. Valkovich directed that one be shot, and then have his head cut off.

Is there anyone left who still believes hackers are 14 year old kids working out of their bedrooms?

http://www.justice.gov/usao/cac/pressroom/pr2009/142.html