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The Canberra Times
The Canberra Times
National
Blake Foden

Woman accused of dark web plot to kill parents committed for trial

The woman allegedly fell for a dark web scam while trying to arrange for her parents to be killed. Picture: Shutterstock

The woman accused of paying a dark web scammer to murder her "prominent Canberran" parents will stand trial after supposedly crucial evidence against her arrived from overseas.

The 27-year-old briefly appeared via phone in the ACT Magistrates Court on Tuesday, having previously pleaded not guilty to two counts of attempted murder and single charges of burglary and theft.

After she also formally pleaded not guilty to two counts of inciting murder, magistrate James Stewart committed her for trial in the ACT Supreme Court.

The woman, who thanked Mr Stewart as he remanded her in custody and terminated the phone link to Canberra's jail, cannot be named for legal reasons.

She has been before the courts for nearly 18 months, having been arrested and charged in December 2020.

Police allege she had burgled her parents' Canberra home a few months earlier, in September 2020, and transferred herself money without authorisation.

She is subsequently said to have purchased Bitcoin and created an account on a dark web site called "The Sinaloa Cartel Marketplace", which advertised services that included "accidental murder".

The woman allegedly agreed to pay $20,000 for the murders of her parents, writing "death by accident if at all possible", before sending a site administrator called "Juan" more than $6000 worth of Bitcoin.

According to police, she stood to inherit more than $2.5 million if both her parents, previously described in court as "prominent Canberrans", died.

Detectives believe the marketplace was a scam, however, and the woman's parents were never harmed.

The woman has been freed from custody multiple times since her initial arrest but she is currently back behind bars on remand, having most recently had her bail revoked last December.

One of the major reasons for the delay in her case reaching the Supreme Court was the slow progress of so-called mutual assistance requests, which involve one government asking another for help with criminal investigations and prosecutions.

Requests were sent in this case to the United States and the United Kingdom, where there was said to be evidence that included details of cryptocurrency transactions allegedly made by the woman.

The UK responded to the request last month, handing over what Crown prosecutor Keegan Lee described as "crucial evidence" and clearing the way for Tuesday's committal.

The Supreme Court registrar is set to start the process of allocating trial dates on May 19.

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