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From WYFF Greenville
A 26-year-old North Carolina man is accused of using the internet to try to hire a hit man and also trying to purchase a lethal dose of a radioactive material, according to a release from the U.S. attorney’s office.
FBI agents said Bryant Riyanto Budi, of Matthews, contacted a Homeland Security Investigations undercover agent in Buffalo, New York, via the internet to set up a murder-for-hire.
Budi used online usernames, encrypted messaging platforms and encrypted email services to disguise his identity from the undercover agent during communication with him in April and May, the FBI said. Budi hired the undercover agent to murder a person who lives in the Charlotte area.
"My enemy that I am trying to get has been making my life a living hell and extorting me for a year now," Budi told the undercover officer. "I was giving him the benefit of the doubt."
Budi reportedly asked the agent to "make it look like a robbery gone wrong," according to the affidavit.
According to an affidavit, Budi was skeptical about hiring the supposed hitman after being burned by a previous person whom he had hired for the killing.
"The previous person I hired didn't do the job and left with my money," Budi allegedly told the agent.
During the conversation, Budi asked the agent to try and make it look like the victim ran away, court documents state. When the agent said it would be easier to make the victim appear as if he "disappeared," Budi agreed, according to court officials.
On April 27, Budi then told the agent that his victim is 30-years-old and lives in Charlotte, N.C. That's when Budi hired the agent and agreed to pay up to $4,000 worth of Bitcoin. Nearly a month later, on May 18, Budi gave the agent the victim's name, height, address and his picture.
Court documents state that the suspect asked the agent to take a picture of the weapon that would be used in the alleged attack. The agent agreed and took a picture outside the victim's apartment, according to court documents. On Wednesday, the agent texted Budi a picture outside the victim's apartment holding a firearm as requested.
The next day, Budi reportedly paid the UCA agent approximately $800 in virtual currency to kill his intended target, according to court documents.
Officers later tracked Budi's IP address to a Holiday Inn in Santa Barbara, California. Court documents state that Budi was the lessee for the apartment where his intended target lived.
In a separate attempted online transaction, the indictment filed over the weekend claims Budi also contacted an employee with the FBI to "purchase a lethal dose of a radioactive substance.”
The suspect reportedly contacted the undercover FBI agent -- who was posing as an on-line arms dealer -- around the same time he hired the agent in the murder-for-hire plot.
According to the affidavit, Budi asked the FBI official whether they sold ricin, a radioactive substance “primarily created in nuclear reactors, is highly-toxic, and will likely cause death if ingested in small amounts."
"How do I know that you have is radioactive not some water solution?" the affidavit says Budi asked the undercover FBI agent.
He then reportedly asked how long it would take someone to die after ingesting the substance, according to court documents.
"I tried to poison him with something else, but it tasted bitter as soon as he took a swig at it so he threw up," the affidavit says Budi told the FBI agent. He then asked whether the substance would show up in an autopsy.
According to the affidavit, Budi told the undercover FBI agent he would be able to put the substance in food to poison the victim "until he dies."
A package containing an inert substitute for the radioactive material ordered by Budi was delivered May 31 to an address in Charlotte as instructed by Budi.
Budi was arrested about 11:15 p.m. Sunday. He is charged with using interstate commerce in the commission of murder-for hire, which carries a sentence of up to 10 years in prison.
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