On Tuesday, the US Department of Justice announced that they had arrested and convicted a Missouri man for attempting to buy three 10ml vial batches of highly toxic chemical material through the dark web back in 2018. The man, Jason William Siesser, will spend 12 years in federal prison without parole. According to US prosecutors working on the case, the amount of chemical Siesser purchased was enough to kill roughly 300 people.
The orders were made in the name of a minor individual and paid for with $150 in Bitcoin. When talking to the seller, Siesser stated that he planned to use the chemicals soon after receiving them. The first delivery never arrived as the US police were conducting a controlled delivery sting, leading to an undercover operation in which officers posed as delivery services dropping off the second package. Siesser signed for the package and law enforcement raided his home, finding 10 grams of deadly cadmium arsenide, 100 grams of cadmium, 500 ml of hydrochloric acid, and other chemicals also allegedly ordered by Siesser in the same year.
Read More: Man jailed for trying to buy chemical weapon online able to kill ‘hundreds’ of people
