A Chinese national appeared in a New York court on Monday charged with offering cryptocurrency, cash and sexual favours in an alleged plot to kill her lover’s wife and daughter – only to discover that the “murder for hire” website was a scam.
Spa worker Yue Zhou, 42, was arrested last month in Virginia and transferred to New York on Wednesday after allegedly attempting to arrange the murders on the dark web. She pleaded not guilty in Brooklyn federal court and did not request bail.
If convicted, she could face 10 to 12 years in prison and deportation. Her lawyer could not be reached for comment.
According to a law enforcement official who asked not to be identified, Zhou is a Chinese national who was living in New York City’s Flushing neighbourhood illegally at the time of the alleged offences.
District attorney Breon Pearce told the eastern district court that Zhou’s “depraved plan was only thwarted because the website she used to set up the murder-for-hire was a scam”.
“Although the scheme involved newer technologies like the internet and bitcoin, the end result would have been age-old cold-blooded murder,” Pearce said.
According to prosecutors, Zhou went shopping on the website between late March and early April 2019 for a hitman to kill her then-lover’s wife. At the time, Zhou was “emotionally invested” in the relationship and expressed a desire to marry and have children with her lover, they said.
Using the online name “Bigtree”, Zhou allegedly contracted with a middleman in Brooklyn to transfer US$5,000 in cash to a bitcoin exchange service in Ukraine and, once delivered, placed the order to have the wife murdered, prosecutors said.
Zhou also reportedly provided detailed descriptions of the potential victim, her home address, work schedule and ideal times to target her so that the husband would have an alibi for the murder.
According to prosecutors, Zhou was not initially aware that the website was a fake and that there was no hitman.
At some point, Zhou asked the website to arrange a hit on her second potential victim – the romantic partner’s adult daughter from an earlier marriage, according to messages prosecutors obtained between Zhou and the website administrator.
Zhou also contacted the daughter directly in December 2019 with the threatening messages: “I will cut your body into hundred pieces” and “I know where you live. I watch you all time”.
It was not immediately clear whether the website was set up by authorities or was a commercial operation, nor whether Zhou’s lover knew about the plot and was being indicted separately. It was also unclear what charges, if any, the website administrator faces.
At some point after making the US$5,000 payment, Zhou became suspicious that the website was a scam and sent several “disturbing” messages to the administrator, threatening physical and sexual violence against him and his family, prosecutors said.
Arguing that Zhou should be denied bail, the prosecutors said that it also appeared she had stalked both of her potential victims.
“Based on her concerted and painstaking efforts to kill numerous people, there is no reason to believe that the defendant would not resort to threats and possible action against potential witnesses, victims, and others who have cooperated with the government in their investigation,” they said.
Zhou is also alleged to have sent a text message in February 2021 to the daughter’s neighbour, offering to pay US$10,000 and provide sex if the neighbour killed the daughter and disposed of her body.
“Throw her body into the lake. I really don’t want to see her again,” Zhou allegedly wrote, apparently frustrated that things weren’t going to plan, according to prosecutors.
Based on mobile phone location data, the text messages were sent from Zhou’s phone in Cheyenne, in the US state of Wyoming, where she was allegedly staying at the time, prosecutors said.
“For the past several years, the defendant has worked for short periods of time at multiple spas around the country that are connected to illicit sex work, including a spa in Cheyenne,” court documents said.
“The Cheyenne spa was the subject of a raid by local law enforcement for prostitution-related offences” as was a spa in Maryland where Zhou worked in 2024, they added.
“Little did she know, the website she allegedly thought she was using to solicit a hitman was a farce,” said special agent-in-charge Ivan Arvelo with the US Department of Homeland Security. “And the crimes of which she is accused soon caught up to her.”
