Why is rentahitman.com in the news?

A woman in Michigan, US, has been found guilty of trying to hire a hitman through a fake website to kill her ex-husband.

Wendy Lynn Wein, 52, faces nine years in jail after she admitted to using a fictitious website called "Rent-A-Hitman” to try and get her ex-husband killed, according to US media reports. She was arrested in July last year for, what the police said, “solicitation to commit murder and illegal use of a computer to facilitate a crime”.

The fictitious website claims to offer hitmen to “solve problems”. She completed a “service request form” on the website and requested a consultation to help her with an “issue”, Michigan State Police had said in a statement last year. When she revealed that her target is her ex-husband, the website’s owner contacted the police and flagged them about the woman’s motives, the police said.

An undercover state trooper posed as a hitman and met the woman in a parking lot. She offered to pay him $5,000 to kill her ex-husband who lives in another state, the police said. Wein also gave him an upfront payment to cover travel expenses.

The owner of "Rent-A-Hitman” told the police that since he started the website in 2005, he has been contacted by a number of people requesting for crimes such as murders, school shootings and even a baby abduction. He claimed that the website has been responsible for preventing 130 murders because he turns over people who contact him for crimes to law enforcement agencies.