A man named Jason William Siesser of Columbia, Missouri, has admitted attempting to buying a chemical weapon( poison) from a person on the dark web on two different occasions. According to court documents The quantity of the chemical weapon he was trying to buy was capable of killing hundreds of people while causing months of suffering.
The name of the specific chemical was redacted from all publicly available court documents. In the past, law enforcement has said that such redaction functions to preserve the integrity of an ongoing investigation. The real reason is that Siesser had attempted to purchase dimethylmercury from an undercover agent and this could result in the identification of the law enforcement officer posing as a dark web vendor. The vast majority of chemical weapon vendors on the dark web are undercover law enforcement officers or fraudsters.
The defendant ordered two ten milliliter units of dimethylmercury, on July 4, 2018, from a darkweb weapons vendor on a dark web market. Most markets don’t allow vendors to sell chemical weapons but some onions explicitly advertise poisons. A good example is Poison Shop, a site that once advertised toxic chemicals. Onion.live marked the site as a scam. According to the various onion service search engines, poison Shop was the only indexed onion service that listed dimethylmercury in 2018. The one other indexed advertisement for the chemical is a post on an Tor-based image-board. Users interested in purchasing a poison were directed to contact a Telegram account.
Siesser provided the vendor with the address of a juvenile as his shipping address, when completing his transaction on the undisclosed dark web site. Siesser worked at a group home that housed juveniles under contract with the State of Missouri and he gave the name and address he gave belonged to a juvenile under his care.
The defendant continued maintained contact with the vendor. Siesser told the vendor he “planned to use it soon after receiving it.” Siesser ordered three more 10-milliliter vials of dimethylmercury from the same vendor, after realizing the vendor never mailed his package of dimethylmercury vials. He transferred $150 in Bitcoin to the vendor on August 5, 2018 and provided the vendor with the juvenile’s shipping address and name.
A controlled delivery was conducted on August 23, 2018, by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. At 1:11 pm, Siesser received the package and signed for the package. He ventilated his house by leaving at least one door open. At 1:43 pm, law enforcement executed a search warrant at the home.
Law enforcement executed the search warrant and Siesser came to the front door after officers knocked and announced that they were there. He was detained and officers asked him if there was anything that would harm them. Siesser stated that there was acid and powder in the garage on the top shelf. When officers asked him about the package that had just been delivered, He said that he did not know what the agent meant even if he was supposed to have the poison. He stated that he had just had a speaker delivered and that the speaker was on the shelf with the acid and powder. Siesser was then transported to the Columbia Police Department.
A search of his home lead to a discovery of the following items:
- The USPS shipping box delivered at 1:11 pm
- The inert substance Siesser believed was dimethylmercury
- A discarded container in which the substance Siesser believed was dimethylmercury was contained
- Two boxes containing 10 grams of cadmium arsenide
- Approximately 100 grams of cadmium metal
- Aproximately 500 ml of hydrochloric acid.
An excerpt of Siessers writing below:
“I wish I’d never met you but now it’s not too late. The things you’ve taught me showed me a new kind of love. Our early ending was all wrong. You discarded me like trash but look at how I got strong. Now that I see you just for what you are I know better. I still have the scar Someday I’ll find you and make your day. The darkness that consumes me will overflow one day. You were there to teach me something I already knew Now it’s my turn to teach you a lesson filled with pain Your life is forfeit, flushed down the drain.”
Excerpt of Siesser’s writings
As law enforcement searched his residence, a different set of officers located and interviewed the juvenile being cared for by Siesser. Investigators learned that Siesser had informed the juvenile that “he was in the military and that he wanted to be an Assassin.” Siesser also told the juvenile that he wanted to kill those that have wronged him and that he wanted to kill his former partner from the Netherlands.
Siesser Conviction for ordering Poison
Siesser pleaded guilty on August 4, 2020 before U.S. Magistrate Judge Willie J. Epps, Jr. to one count of attempting to acquire a chemical weapon and one count of aggravated identity theft. The chemical weapon charge carries a mandatory minimum sentence of five years in federal prison. It comes with a statutory maximum penalty of life in prison without parole.