Professional hitmen don’t actually exist. It’s a ‘business’ that you can’t possibly advertise for and has no way for the customer to assess the quality of the provider in advance. Sometimes killings do happen in exchange for money, but they don’t involve someone that is a professional killer that works with the public as their primary source of income. It just doesn’t exist. But there are some cases where killing does happen for money.
Sometimes two people will conspire to kill another for profit. Maybe one spouse hates another spouse. They ask a close friend or relative to kill their spouse, and they offer a portion of proceeds from life insurance as a payment for their risk and trouble. Or they’re cheating on their spouse with someone else, stand to inherit all their spouses assets upon their demise, and promise to marry the person they’re cheating with, thus sharing all the assets with them. In this case, it’s not a stranger being hired; the killer has known the person ‘hiring’ them for decades.
Some killings-for-hire are gang related. A gang wants someone killed. They don’t hire a random person to do it. They get one of their own members, who they’ve already known for many years and is a full member of the gang. In compensation for the huge risk the person is taking on to perform the deed, they offer a large sum of cash. Again, an unvetted stranger is not being hired. This person has likely already committed numerous crimes on the gang’s behalf in the past. When you’ve already committed enough crimes on a gang’s behalf to get you years in prison, a murder isn’t such a stretch.
Some killings-for-hire are done at the behest of nation-states. Spycraft. The KGB or CIA hire someone in a foreign country who is already sympathetic to them to kill someone the intelligence agency wants taken out. The intelligence agency doesn’t just select anyone, they go through a long vetting process just like they would any other intelligence asset. In fact, the potential assassin has likely already provided good intelligence and assistance to them for years, already risked extensive jail time or worse. If you’re a US military member that’s been providing intelligence to the KGB for a decade and have already participated in sabotage efforts, you’re already looking at treason charges if you’re caught. Offing someone for the KGB isn’t such an escalation. And when a nation-state hires someone to perform a killing, they also offer the person a plausible way out. The CIA can hire someone to kill someone for them in a foreign country and hand that person a US passport along with a few million safely in a US bank account in their name. Hell, they can make sure the assassin’s family has been given US citizenship and is already in the US before the deed is done. The CIA assassin can perform the killing, and as long as they can get to US or friendly territory before the foreign cops catch up with them, they’ll be completely free and clear. And regardless, their family will already be set for life in the US.
These are the kinds of scenarios where killings actually do occur in exchange for money. No one hires someone to kill another that they haven’t heavily vetted. If a random civilian is going to hire someone else to kill someone, they won’t hire a professional assassin. They’ll hire their brother or their lover. Otherwise contract killings only are done by organizations like gangs or national intelligence agencies, and they only hire people to do so that they’ve worked with for years and who has already committed numerous less severe crimes for them in the past.
In short, there really is no such thing as a professional assassin that serves the general public. Maybe if you are the spouse of a high-level violent gang member, you might be able to convince them to use the gang’s resources to pay one of their trusted members to kill someone in exchange for cash. But if you’re just a random average person? Forget it. There simply are not professional contract killers hiding in the shadows that a random civilian can hire if they have the cash. Anyone claiming to be that is simply a cop. Any person who DID try to start a career like this would be caught very quickly and have a very, very short career.
Professional hitmen don’t actually exist.
Sammy “The Bull” Gravano would probably disagree with you. He’d likely consider himself a professional since he admitted to involvement in 19 murders. Granted they were all mob related, and not “for hire” by anybody with a pile of cash and a grudge…
Sure. But when I say, “professional hit man” I don’t mean a gangster, a mobster, or a spy. I’m referring to more of the professional hitman as seen in popular culture: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ProfessionalKiller
Think the trope in fiction. Someone wants someone killed. They find the shadiest person they can, like their tweaker cousin’s dealer. They then ask this shady person if they can put them in touch with a contract killer. Through the grapevine, they meet with someone who is literally a professional killer-for-hire. The usual trope is some extremely well-put together gentleman; he probably wears a 3-piece suit and black leather gloves. He probably views killing as an art form. He takes professional pride in it. He’s probably obsessed with expensive firearms and their various accessories, and he personally owns an arsenal big enough to take down the government of a modestly-sized city. Killing is his passion; he only charges at all because he has bills to pay like anyone else. The usual trope is to imagine someone as professional and presentable as the most formal lawyer or doctor you can imagine, except their business is killing.
While the real world version of a professional killer wouldn’t be so extreme, the core should remain if they are to be a professional killer. They don’t need to dress in a suit, have a private arsenal of rare expensive weapons, and speak in a British accent. But they should still meet the minimum definition of professional to count as a professional hitman. A “professional” is generally someone who offers a specific service to the public as their primary occupation. Lots of people know first aid. But only a doctor or a nurse makes medical care their actual profession. Most people can replace a light switch, but that doesn’t make them a professional electrician. A professional usually sees some higher purpose or artfulness in their services and seeks to provide them to all that can afford them.
Sammy Gravano was a mobster, a terrible human being, and a ruthless killer. But he was a mobster first, and a killer second. He committed numerous other crimes on behalf of the mob, not just murder. And he didn’t commit murders that weren’t at the behest of the mob. You, as a random stranger, couldn’t just knock on his door, hand him a bag full of cash, and get him to off someone for you. In fact, he would probably kill YOU just for trying.
Per OP’s original question, Sammy Gravano does not count. There was no way for some random person back during his day to find him, hire him, and have him take someone out for them. He was a mobster, not a professional hitman-for-hire. And that is a crucial distinction.
lol until you find someone taking the kids to school and then killing from 9 to 5 you won’t be happy
From my extensive experience in this area (true crime podcasts lol), if your hitman is either quoting a reasonable price or offering a payment plan, they’re a cop.
Unless you’re in South Africa, in which case you can legitimately walk in to a bar and hire a murderer for a very reasonable price.
From my extensive experience in this area (true crime podcasts lol), if your hitman is either quoting a reasonable price or offering a payment plan, they’re a cop.
And the ones asking for payment up front will enjoy the free money. What, were you going to get a receipt for that?
LMAO ok now you got me curious what consists of a reasonable price? If the guy I was first married to who beat the shit out of me and raped me how much would that be?
Getting kinda specific here…
Edit: really sorry you went through that, but I hope you’re not thinking about making a rash decision.
Oh no been through therapy for it and left the state. Was just kind of curious if someone would kill a abuser/rapist at less of a rate than like an ex husband who is well off.
So what is a realistic price in a western country? And what about those darknet hitmans?
Its pretty easy to hire a hitman on the dark web. Just be aware, they all seem to be undercover FBI agents.
So what I just type in Hitman…not the game and there it is? Also how does one use the dark web? Never thought about it. But a friend or so called friend just got busted for hiring a hit man to kill her adult son. And when I knew here I had to teach her how to use windows and type. So I am guessing and correct me if I am wrong it must be pretty easy to use the dark web.
You need a browser such as Tor to access the dark web, from there its similar to the rest of the internet. I’ll let you figure out the rest and you too could be targeted by your own FBI sting!
How easy or hard is it to hire a Hitman?
That’s the man right there, Officer.
Depends on who you know.
If you are well connected to a cartel or a similar crime organisation or at least in good standing with them: No, it’s not that difficult, sadly.
If you are not, thankfully it’s hard.
Why? Because it’s illegal and that is a problem for the buyer in that case. Why? Because if you hire someone he can simply fuck off with the money. Now what do you do now? You can’t go to the police or sue him. You can of course hire another hitman and try to kill the first hitman . But who guarantees that this hitman is not also fucking off with the money? (There was literally a case when this happened).
So unless you have some kind of “society net” behind you, that protects you from this, either via coercion (“Pablo will kill your family if you fuck off with his money, the buyer is his veterinarian!”) or other guarantees (“You are no longer welcome with lemmafia, you screwed over one of us!”) you are likely fucked.
And if you would,you would not ask that here.
Which is good.
The old school hitman that worked for a higher up in a syndicate has nearly disappeared these days at least in the industrial nations. DNA based investigation techniques are fairly common these days and it is nearly impossible to be certain that you left no traces. And these can fuck you over 20 years later. So it’s not a long term career these days as people don’t want to risk being caught for drunk driving 20 years later and now have a murder case brought up against them all of a sudden. Additionally these kind of people are a liability - they can connect someone who does not want to be connected to a crime to one. Which makes them very interesting witnesses.
Even the crime cartels often use kids/minors as hitman these days - sometimes even brought in from South America,etc. just for the crime. They have very little risk of detection as they won’t be in any databases, they don’t care if they get their DNA on something when they disappear into a slum (or worse) afterwards anyway and if caught they won’t get harsh sentences most of the time.
This is super interesting. Do you have any more information about these child assassins? Like an article to read? Or an anime I can watch?
A good article on the general topic
I can’t find the one about the US I read, but here’s a similar one in terms of burglary.
And an anime? Dude. What the fuck is wrong with you?
There is nothing glorious,nothing anime-worthy about these cases. There are victims on both sides - the crime victim of course,but also the child murderers are often somewhat a victim. They are not old enough to grasp the full concept of what they are up against, they are often first tricked and then coerced/forced, often come from a destitute family and economical situation and there have been cases when they disappear afterwards. A murder is a murder,but often they don’t know what they get themselves into.
The only winners are the cartel/gang bosses. As usual.
