NEW YORK
A federal judge sentenced Cheng Le, 22, of Manhattan, New York to 16 years in prison for trying to buy the poison ricin to use as a lethal weapon, according to federal officials.
Following a four-day jury trial, Le also was convicted on Aug. 25. for postal fraud, identity theft in relation to a terrorism offense.
Le was seeking a ‘risk-free’ way to murder an individual, officials said.
“Through the Dark Web, Cheng Le attempted to acquire a lethal toxin,” said U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara. “In Le’s own words, established at trial, he was looking for ‘simple and easy death pills’ and ways to commit ‘100% risk-free’ murder. Thanks to the FBI, the NYPD and the Postal Inspection Service, Le’s deadly plot was thwarted and he has been incapacitated by a lengthy term in federal prison.”
According to the allegations in court documents, this is the evidence:
Ricin is a highly potent and fatal toxin with no known antidote.
The dark web is a colloquial name for a number of “extensive, sophisticated and widely used online criminal marketplaces,” that allow people to buy and sell illegal items, including ricin.
In early December 2014, Le contacted a FBI online covert employee on a particular dark web marketplace using an encrypted messaging service.
The covert employee had taken over the dark web identity from another individual who had a reputation for selling lethal poisons. After making contact with the covert employee, Le inquired, “this might sound blunt but do you sell ricin?”
Following that initial contact, Le exchanged a series of messages with the covert employee concerning his efforts to purchase ricin.
During these messages, Le confirmed his understanding of the lethal nature of ricin, revealed his intent to resell the ricin to at least one secondary buyer, proposed that the covert employee conceal the ricin in a single pill in an otherwise ordinary bottle of pills and indicated a desire to obtain more ricin in the future.
Le’s messages to the covert employee included the following:
- “If [the ricin’s] good quality, I’ve already had buyers lining up.”
- “Does ricin have antidote? Last I check there isn’t one, isn’t it?”
- “Injection can be difficult to pull off. Ricin doesn’t work immediately. You wouldn’t expect the target to not fight back after being jabbed.”
- “The client would like to know . . . if it is wise to use ricin on someone who is hospitalized. . . . Injection will leave needle holes on the body which could be found in regular forensic examination. But hospitalized people already have needles in them so it wouldn’t be suspicious. Thing is, would ricin make the death look like someone succumbed to the injuries after an accident and didn’t make it through? In that case then, a little anethestical [sic] gas in the target’s car, get him drowsy when driving, get into an accident, and then kill him in the hospital bed.”
- “I probably told you this before, about mixing one and only one toxic pill into a bottle of normal pills. They all look identical. And as the target takes the medicine every day, sooner or later he’d ingest that poisonous pill and die. Even if there is a murder investigation, they won’t find any more toxin. 100% Risk Free.”“If you can make them into simple and easy death pills, they’d become bestsellers.”
- “I’ll be trying out new methods in the future. After all, it is death itself we’re selling here, and the more risk-free, the more efficient we can make it, the better.”
- “Also, besides that one bottle of pills with one poisonous pill in there, can you send some extra loose powder/liquid ricin? I’d like to test something.”
Moreover, during these exchanges, Le revealed to the covert employee that he had a specific victim in mind: “someone middle-aged. Weight around 200 lbs.”
On Dec. 18, 2014, Le directed the covert employee to send a quantity of ricin addressed to the name of an individual whose stolen identity Le had assumed at a particular postal box in Manhattan.
On Dec. 22, 2014, the FBI prepared a mock shipment of ricin that was consistent with Le’s request. The sham shipment included a fake ricin tablet concealed in a pill bottle, and a quantity of loose fake ricin powder.
The next day, the sham shipment was delivered to the postal box. Le, wearing latex gloves, retrieved the sham shipment, opened it and took the contents to his apartment.
When FBI agents entered Le’s apartment to arrest him and search the apartment pursuant to a search warrant, they saw the pill bottle open in his apartment.
The agents also recovered from Le’s apartment an envelope containing castor seeds from which Ricin can be produced. Le’s computer was open to the online account that he had used to communicate with the covert employee and to Le’s personal email account.
Le was arrested in New York on Dec. 23, 2014.