An Austrian has been arrested after he tried to hire a hitman on the Dark Web to kill his ex-wife during a bitter custody dispute.

The agency that he contacted, however, was a fraud, and he was caught when the FBI investigated it and discovered his failed attempt to pay them cash to carry out the killing.

The 32-year-old man from the city of Vienna, in Austria, whose identity was not disclosed due to local privacy laws, was detained and faces charges for attempted murder after he contacted the alleged contract killer in May 2021.

He reportedly turned to the Dark Web and found a fake assassination agency, and ordered the murder of his ex-wife, aged 29, who he was negotiating custody terms with following their divorce.

Vienna Police Department spokesperson Barbara Gass explained that the man paid the fake assassin two instalments of EUR 1,000 (GBP 883), and added: “Since it was a fraud site, the order was not carried out.”

But he was reported to Austrian authorities by the FBI last summer, after their experts, investigating suspicious websites at the time, found out that the site in question was accessed from Austria.

Austrian detectives managed to locate him through his IP address and apprehended him on Thursday, 9th February 2023.

The Vienna Police Department said in a statement obtained by Newsflash: “The suspect was identified through meticulous and dedicated investigative work by the city police command in Favoriten, the Vienna State Criminal Police Office and the Federal Criminal Police Office, C4-Cybercrime Competence Center.”

He was later questioned at police headquarters and confessed the act, after which he was jailed at the Josefstadt Prison.

Gass said: “He confessed during the interrogation. He said custody disputes at the time were the reason for the contract killing.”

Following the arrest, officers searched the 32-year-old man’s house at the request of the public prosecutor and seized numerous data carriers.

The investigations continue.