Airman Arrested After Trying to Become a Hitman

Garcia with a Rifle [Source: Facebook]

In another bizarre story involving the US Air National Guard after one was arrested for attempting to become a hitman. Obviously, your first thought might jump to a Dark Web sting or links to organised crime, right? Nope, Josiah Garcia was arrested for sending his hitman application to a joke website. The website in question, rentahitman.com, was a prank website, that in no way portrayed itself as a real hitman service. That was obvious to most people, but not Garcia. The website has a 'careers page', which spoke of satirical criteria for a desired hitman, including applications like 'Do you have all of your natural teeth?'. Garcia took the site seriously and began contacting it, repeatedly. In his application, under his so-called street name Reaper, he wrote, "I'm looking for a job, that pays well, related to my military experience (Shooting and Killing the marked target) so I can support my kid on the way [...] What can I say, I enjoy doing what I do, so if I can find a job that is similar to it (such as this one) put me in coach!" 

From February 16th, when Garcia first contacted the site, to March 16th, he sent multiple emails following up on his application. When the owner of the site saw the subsequent emails, he knew that Garcia was being serious about his desire to kill. The emails were forwarded to the FBI who scheduled a mock assassin interview with him on April 5th. Garcia was gleeful during the interview and boasted that he was a 'trained military sniper'. Garcia asked about his future assassin salary, even saying he would kill for as little as $2500. The FBI then set up a fake hit for Garcia to perform on April 12th. When he arrived at the scene, he was arrested swiftly by the FBI. (Metro, 2023) Garcia was a Tennessee Air National Guardsman and wanted to make some quick money as he had a baby on the way. Garcia is the second Air National Guardsman to be arrested in the past few months after Jack Texiera was arrested for leaking important, confidential documents about Ukraine's spring counteroffensive. 

Works Cited

Folk, Zachary. “US Air National Guardsman Arrested after “Applying to Be a Hitman Online.”” Metro, 17 Apr. 2023, metro.co.uk/2023/04/17/tennessee-us-air-national-guardsman-arrested-after-applying-to-be-a-hitman-online-18628219/. Accessed 8 May 2023.

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