Find Yura: Manhunt on the Dark Web

I'm no different than any other teenager in America.

[LAUGH] [MUSIC] I love my family and my friends. [MUSIC] My two dogs and my cat.

I love writing. I love reading.

“Despite me trying to be a normal teenager,”

someone does want me dead. [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] This is the picture of me, a description of me,

where I lived, where I worked. That Mastermind 365 posted about me. On the Murr for Higher Website. Yes. Hi, my name is Yura.

We have hundreds of gang members, criminals, and people

who love to kill for money. [MUSIC] They are anonymous. Yura anonymous. So come and get rid of those nasty problems.

[MUSIC] This is deadly serious. This is talking about the murder of a human being. It definitely changed my life. I kept looking over my shoulder.

I didn't know who I could trust. I could be killed on my way to work.

“I could be killed on my way home from school.”

And that terrified me. [MUSIC] You can submit your orders to kill the people you hate. [MUSIC]

We've got some significant leads on who Yura might be.

Do you think you're getting close? Yeah, absolutely. [MUSIC] As a dark web intelligence analyst, my job is to uncover that which is hidden.

Is there a chance as I look up on your screen? That may be our guide. [MUSIC] Everyone can be found. Yura can be found.

[MUSIC] So we are literally a car ride from where we're talking right now to where you believe Yura actually lives. Yes. We're going to make a left at the next street.

[MUSIC] Go slow, go slow, go slow, go slow, go slow, go slow. Where's the house? Is this one right here? Yeah, it's this house right here where you're a might presently live. When the heart is racing.

[MUSIC] A lot, go. Are you Yura? Stop recording right now. [MUSIC]

[MUSIC] Late on a frigid night in February 2019, 18-year-old Alexis Stern was driving near her home town of Big Lake, Minnesota. When she says she noticed a white van in her rear view mirror.

[MUSIC] So we started driving around town, taking beef tours. [MUSIC] But the van stuck with her. In a growing panic, she called authorities,

who later located and spoke with the van's drive. [MUSIC] He claimed he was lost. He didn't know where he was. You have no doubt you were being followed, right?

Yeah. Alexis had every reason to be worried. Because of something that had happened just months earlier, when out of nowhere, the police had called her. You have to talk to you.

It's dire and you need to come now. It's dire, he says. Yes, he said it was urgent. [MUSIC] I had no idea what to expect.

Someone died, someone hurt, like am I in trouble. When Alexis arrived at the police station, she got stunning news.

“He was just like, I think you should sit down.”

Someone put a head out on you and they won't need it. [MUSIC] I was like, this is a joke, right? It was not a joke. On the dark web, someone using the alias,

Mastermind 365, had gone to a hitman for higher sight and paid about $5,000 worth of bitcoin for Alexis to be assassinated. Giving chilling details. Where I looms, where I worked,

my picture of me, a description of me, everything. FBI and Homeland Security agents soon got involved.

Alexis knew someone out there wanted her dead. And that terrify me. Authorities promised to investigate.

“The aspiring horror book author had read about the dark web.”

A hidden online marketplace where criminality ranging from human trafficking to illegal weapons is advertised for sale. Even murder. The more you start to think, the darker it starts to get.

It was in 2017 that 48 hours first investigated dark web

murder for higher. The next year, we exposed about 20 active murder plots. Police received a tip from the CBS News program 48 hours. 48 hours alerted law enforcement, leading to arrests in two states and two foreign countries.

Our investigation also led us to this mysterious figure known as Europe, who has been operating hitman sites for about five years. We don't know his real name or location, but he sent us these video diaries. I am doing this video diary entry

to give you official statements. Looking for criminals on the dark web. It's not for the faint of heart.

“For most of her career, this woman has lived in the shadows.”

I was a member of the intelligence community. Now, she's a CBS News consultant who we hired to help us look for Europe. What makes it challenging as this isn't your traditional law enforcement investigation where there's DNA and there's fingerprints and a weapon and a crime scene.

Lisa, as we'll call her, has altered her appearance for this interview. In the world of the dark web, DNA is email addresses, user names, passwords. Lisa analyzed your Israelis. Because English is very good.

But she says the evidence suggests he is foreign born and doesn't work alone. There's definitely some support. She says the murder for higher sites are all about making big money and that she found millions of dollars of profits in an online account she believes is linked to Europe.

Abords of, I think, 5 million.

Apparently, about 5,000 dollars of those profits was allegedly paid to kill Alexis Stern. When her parents found out, they weren't taking any chances. You left Minnesota. We just started driving.

It was scary. But who would want her dead? Alexis thought she knew. Back in 2016, she was a high school sophomore struggling with her self-esteem.

She was just 15 when a friend introduced her to an older man online. I ended up meeting a guy named Adrian. Adrian Fry. She was intrigued to learn that Adrian Fry lived in England.

I was always partial to British accent,

so I thought it was kind of a bonus. Adrian was 20. He said he was training to be an accountant and liked to stream video games online. His screen name, Rocket Wind.

What is a police gentleman? My name is Rocket Wind, and welcome to another patch. I wanted to have a boyfriend, and it was a perfect opportunity. In August of 2016, Fry flew to Minnesota and got a hotel room near her house.

This is Adrian right here. Yes. Do your parents have any idea this is going on? No, they had no idea. The two began a relationship.

Alexis had just turned 16.

“He was already pretty much talking about getting married, honestly.”

He was 100% sent out being with me. Adrian Fry visited Alexis twice more in the summer of 2017 and in the spring of 2018. She says her feelings were changing. He really started trying to control my normal everyday life.

They had considered themselves a couple for about two years. When Alexis told Adrian, it was over. He freaked out. He did not like that at all. It was a lot of pleading, a lot of begging.

A few months later, when she told him she had a new boyfriend, she says he became angry. Pretty much saying you deserve everything horrible that happens to you. Do you sense that he's basically sending you a message?

And what is that message?

“That's not going to end that great for me.”

Someone can sneak into the house and kill me. I could be killed on my way home from school. We asked Alexis Stern to read the disturbing emails between the person who wanted her dead, codenamed Mastermind 365 and Yura.

The alleged murder for higher king pin on the dark web. I can see on your website that the services you offer are murder, a soul, arson. I kidnapping is the job that I had in mind. Mastermind 365 sent this picture of Alexis to Yura.

Then for some reason, about a week later, he upgraded his order

from kidnapping to I would just like this person dead. I would just like this person to be shot and killed. It was another cold and clinical minnesota hit order that triggered our original dark web murder for higher investigation. In 2016, a 43-year-old dog trainer named Amy Allwine was killed

in nearby cottage grove. Police questioned her husband Stephen. Like Mastermind 365, Stephen Allwine had paid Yura thousands of dollars to arrange a hit. When it didn't happen, Allwine took matters into his own hands

and shot his wife in the head.

In 2018, he was convicted of murder.

“Do you have any doubt in your mind who put out the contract on your life?”

I have no doubt in my mind that it is Adrian Fry. Adrian Fry, her ex-boyfriend from England. When she saw the kill order dated July 15, she says the timing suddenly made sense to her. What had happened the day before July 14?

That is when I told Adrian that I was dating someone else. And it wasn't just the timing of the hit order. She says it was the language too. It sounds very British. I would just like this person dead.

But if there is any more information you would like in box me. I don't know anyone in America that uses the term in box me. Adrian, on the other hand, often would say that. Alexis noticed Mastermind 365 sometimes referred to himself with a lower case I. She says when Adrian wrote her, he did the same thing.

She also saw that Mastermind 365 wrote, "Thank you as one word." In Adrian's messages to her, he done that too. It's a cork that would become more significant later in our investigation. And there was more. Mastermind 365 to Europe.

My problem is that I don't currently have an extra vibrant. But I will have it in about a week's time. This part is from Adrian to me. If there is a chance you may like me in years' time, then I will happily wait. The phrases weeks' time and years' time are common in British English.

In writing them, both Mastermind 365 and Adrian Fry had left off and apostrophe. So there's a couple of phrases that matches Adrian's pattern. Yes. She also realized Mastermind 365 seemed to have grown impatient with Europe over time. And that's when she saw one particular message that sent a shiver up her spine.

Do you guys sell guns? I need a pistol with a silencer. He's asked you to help him get a gun with a silencer. Mm-hmm. What does that tell you?

It sounds like he is willing to take matters and do his own hands if it doesn't get done. Just like Stephen All-Wine.

“And that's what worries our dark web expert Lisa.”

She believes you're as websites are a scam and that frustrated clients may be moved to violence. The fact that he's a scammer, as opposed to an actual hitman for a higher provider,

So there are people out there who believe in his real hitman website.

“Alexa Stern says, "After more than a year with little apparent progress on her case,”

she became frustrated and agreed to try her luck with us." I decided I might as well take a chance and see what a 48 hours can help me with. She is determined to see Justice catch up to the man she says ordered her murder. And the person who promised to arrange it.

Lisa, we have always thought in our investigation that you're a must live overseas.

Are we right? No, Peter. You're on my live right here in New York City. The hitman marketplace is like any other auction site. It brings customers and vendors together.

He's still out there on someone. The cyber-host euro. Still uncatchable in a hidden world.

“Still a confounding mystery of customers.”

It's probably no surprise that our global man hunt for euro began on a computer. So I've ventured into a very strange place for the first time in my life, the Dark Web. In 2018, we wrote to him on his website asking for an interview. Much to our surprise, he agreed to sit down with us on camera in London. We were already there to interview a self-styled cyber-crime researcher named Chris Montero,

who'd been monitoring euro and his hitman sites for more than three years. And so people transferred to the website of very very nasty individuals. So we flown from New York to London, rented this studio. You can see the lights behind me for the big interview. And we even brought in a master of disguise who's going to camouflage euro's face.

Now all we need is him.

The elusive euro never showed up.

“Climbing, we could have been followed by police.”

But he did start sending us those video statements. We will be waiting for you to come place your orders and get rid of your problems. Who seems to enjoy taunting 48 hours sent us this email in June 2019. Unfortunately, after your show, the business has decreased tremendously. People concluded that the site is a scam.

euro even claimed he's going legit moving away from the murder for higher sites into the real world. I opened a restaurant business and I live nice. Lisa, our dark web expert, doubts euro has left his criminal pass behind. He's still very much in business. He's still working.

Absolutely. And as the cases of Amy All-Wine and Alexis Stern show, even if euro's hitman sites are scams, the customers paying him to have people killed are horrifyingly real. A lot of people want other people killed.

Correct. All across the United States. And the world, yes. Lisa is determined to unmask euro. Everyone can be found.

euro can be found.

And she quickly spotted her first clue.

A massive trail of hacked digital data. Digging through that treasure trove, Lisa believes she's un-earthed a few gold nuggets. Hi, this is you ready to get. Including euro's likely password from one of his only murder for higher sites. In this case, we've got this very unique password of friends of 22.

F-R-U-N-Z-A-22. So this sounds like a lead. From a digital forensic perspective, this is a huge lead. Lisa immediately launched a worldwide search across the dark web and the regular internet for that password possibly linked to euro.

In a matter of hours, she's zeroed in on two hits from different sides of the planet. Just on a Google search. Friends of 22, actually lead us to Moldova, well, places.

There's a village here called Franza.

It's also a common last name. Franza 22 gave us all this intelligence with which to work with and narrow down who euro possibly could be. Lisa discovered that the online seller of this car in Moldova had also used Franza 22.

Could there be a link? The license plate for this car obviously gives us more information.

“Do you have an answer yet as to who owns this vehicle?”

Unfortunately, we do not. We're coordinating with people in the ground in Moldova to see who this car is actually registered to. But the most compelling clue Lisa says, connects euro's possible password to a standard email address here

in the United States.

I was able to identify that with very high probability

with an older Russian woman in New York. Lisa thinks the woman could be euro's relative. This cyber search for euro and his anonymous dark web connections will involve a tedious time-consuming process of following digital bread crimes.

One piece of evidence stands on its own and you look at it as a breadcrum and you try to chase that for a bit. And then you find another breadcrum. And collectively, when you start to add all these things up, you have a higher confidence assessment.

I keep my identity private. Everything that could help with recognition. As our global hunt for euro intensifies, we're reminded that his borderless reach from the bottom of the internet has left shattered lives in his wake.

Amy All-Wine murder. And others marked for death. Living in perpetual fear. And that people around the world in danger. And I recently about it.

What Chris Montero did was secretly hack into euro's websites, stretching up disturbing emails from clients ordering grizzly hits, and passing them on to 48 hours. We immediately informed law enforcement. Three cases we investigated in 2018 in Illinois,

Tennessee, and California have led to explosive conclusions. Do you understand the terror that you have caused? Woodridge, Illinois. Tina Jones, a registered nurse, got involved with a married colleague. When he ended the affair, she allegedly paid euro

about $12,000 to kill the man's wife. ATC has been critical. Tina Jones has challenged his brother and approaching the mansion. This was a nurse. Someone who saves lives.

Truth really is strange within fiction. Woodridge police sergeant Daniel Murray, acting on the 48 hours tip, brought a chillingly calm Tina Jones in for questioning. Easier to go for everybody involved. So I'm just going to ask you right now.

“Did you make any threat or did you try to have somebody do something on your behalf to Jeff's wife?”

Okay, you sure about that. Pause. You buying it? No. Why not?

She just doesn't come off as believable. I really don't know. Moments later, the truth. Which got to tell me now. I did.

You did. Yeah.

Tina Jones just pleaded guilty to attempted first-degree murder in August 2019.

Tina Jones learned her fate. She will spend the next 10 years in prison. For 18 hours. 48 hours also tipped off detective Michael Olrie in Clarksville, Tennessee.

“Who broke the news to then 22-year-old Sydney minor?”

A single mom. Someone went on the dark web. There is a word for hire, a website, and someone has paid to have murdered. Well, what? Sydney, who is pregnant with her second child, quickly identified the father of her unborn baby as a suspect.

Brandon states. Sydney says he had pressured her to get an abortion. He married. Didn't know I had the time. The only person in our mind was Brandon states because it was his child.

Brandon states eventually pleaded guilty to attempted premeditated murder.

“In March 2019, the Army Specialist was sentenced by a military court to 15 years in Fort Leavenworth.”

By his final court hearing, Sydney had given birth to a little girl named Sailor. Brandon states asked to meet his daughter before going to prison. Sydney reluctantly agreed and handed the little girl to the man who had paid money to kill them both. Give me a sense of what was going through your mind at that moment. Fear. A lot of fear. She had immune him in a courtroom with police officers.

And armed guards.

I told him I'll never forgive you for what you've done.

Around the same time in San Luis Obispo, California, this man awaits trial.

“We know that you wanted your stepmother murdered, but we don't know why. Why did you do it?”

In late 2019, Bob Brigham, a one-time YouTube star. I never did it for the money. I did it because I had a lot of time on my head. It's on trial for solicitation of murder.

After 48 hours, tipped authorities to his case.

In 2018, Brigham allegedly had paid you to arrange the assassination of his stepmother. During questioning by detectives, he seemed to acknowledge ordering the hit. I remember, while on some stupid site, and I was arranged, just sent it much of stuff. I do not deny he went to the site. I absolutely deny that he had any intention whatsoever of hurting his stepmother.

Defense attorney, Ilan Funky Belu, says Brigham wasn't serious. Evidence shows Brigham paid less than $3 in Bitcoin toward the $5,000 hit. If there was two intent, it wouldn't stop at $2.95. After nearly three weeks of testimony, it takes the jury seven hours to find Brigham guilty of solicitation of murder. And a month later, so it just came out of the courtroom.

He was sentenced to just three years in state prison. But with credit for time served, he was released in January 2020. Alexis Stern is frustrated that in her case, there hasn't even been an arrest. Forty-eighth hours track her ex-boyfriend, Adrian Fry, to this house in the city of Bath England. And we're watching the place.

So far, he hasn't emerged. A hitman marketplace is like any other auction site. The man who took the kill order, Adrian allegedly made, is still at large too. But Lisa says finding Ura may partly depend on exposing and flipping the people he hasn't worked with him. Everyone has a network, right?

“We uncovered information about an important thread in Ura's web.”

A thread stretching all the way to the sprawling city of Kolkata, India, and a computer contractor named Santos Sharma. Ura contracted Santos Sharma to assist him with digital marketing and promotion of it. Ura had become so brazen. He actually was promoting his dark web sites on the regular internet by hiring a marketing specialist. Our producer in India, our shot, Zargar, spent weeks looking for Sharma.

But we managed to track down voltage addresses. We tipped authorities who summoned Sharma to the police station. After they questioned him, Sharma agreed to an interview with us. We asked him about the sites he created on the regular internet to advertise Ura's sites on the dark web. What did the websites then you created for him?

I have created a model for hired.com. He insisted he was just an everyday internet marketer hired on a freelance job.

No. I just sat with him. I have asked him a phone number. He said they're not in touch at all anymore. And that he doesn't know Ura's real name or location.

But which is he did? Because Ura scammed him too.

Ura still owes him about $4 million.

And he has been trying to get in touch with him asking for the money. Sharma was released without charges. But Hacker Chris Montero says Ura's operations took up body blow. The work of 48 hours investigating Santosh Sharma in India.

“That was very important in shutting down his advertising operations.”

Lisa wants to see Ura shut down complete. And she believes she's getting close to finding him. And it'll be right up here, not only right. I'm going to drop my head down. My heart is racing.

And we're closing in on Adrian Fry too.

He lives in this house west of London. God, see what happens. Hey, good evening. We staked out Adrian Fry's house in England. The young man Alexis believes ordered her murder and asked Ura about obtaining a gun.

For days it seemed like nobody was home. Then one night in February 2020. Take a look at this.

“A car has pulled up in front of the house.”

So we're going to head over now and go knock on the door. We can't see what happens. And see if we can speak face to face with Adrian Fry. Hey, good evening. My name is Peter Vincent. I was wondering if Adrian's here. Adrian's brother answered the door.

Saying Adrian was visiting friends. He gave us the name of the nearby town and we went to check it out. But couldn't find him. Would you ever meet with Adrian Fry again? Not unless he's behind bars.

But that now seems unlikely. In November 2019, Alexis Stern received a letter from the FBI saying the case was being closed. Because the United States attorney's office has declined to prosecute.

But authorities never explained why the case was dropped.

“And refused to tell 48 hours what if anything they had ever done to investigate Adrian Fry or Ura?”

To all law enforcement, just try and close our side if you can. In our own two-year global search for Ura, we've been stood up in the UK. What have you said? I don't think he's coming. Found Ura's marketing guru in India.

I have paid a murder for hired.com, based on mafia.com. But not Ura himself. And hit a dead end with that car add in Moldova, where we had hired a local researcher to track down the owners. Lisa now believes it's just a coincidence that friends at 22 appeared in the car add. There's no direct correlation.

In January 2020, we followed Lisa's lead to a woman in New York City who Lisa now believes is Ura's mother-in-law. We've just left Manhattan where we had. Queens, maybe we'll find Ura. I hope so. It took three months of digging through digital clues for Lisa to uncover what she calls strong evidence against the man she now believes is Ura.

It includes a link to that unusual password from the 22. And 48 hours discovered an email address that included gun and killer connected to the man Lisa found in New York City. It was enough to make me pause when I saw that email address. Lisa believes the man had moved to the U.S. from overseas in the 1990s. And now owns a large repair business registered some kind of tech company and most recently bought a restaurant.

I have high confidence that this man is very likely Ura. What's that confidence level if you put it in a percentage?

Lisa says there's no such thing as 100% certainty on the secretive dark web.

“That's why we decided not to name the man or show his face.”

And we're in a position where we can take a look down on a sidewalk and see if he approaches. We spotted him on a public sidewalk. Hey, hey, don't. I'm Peter Vansant with CBS News and we have some questions we'd like to get answered if we may. That's him. Our investigation of murder for hire on the dark web has led us here and I want to ask you, are you Ura?

Ura. Ura is a person who runs has run various murder for hire sites on the dark web. What are you talking about? Can you explain this a little bit? I then asked him about Fransa 22 that potentially incriminating password. How do you explain that on the base of mafia website?

The administrator uses a password from the 22. Lisa says to pay special attention to the man's reaction after I mentioned the password. The minute you hit him with the evidence, that is the key piece of evidence in this case. The password. He immediately then shuts down and starts going, no, no, no, no, I don't want to be here.

He then did something I've never seen before.

If what would start anything, I want to make sure the whole world knows what's going on. He started streaming our conversation live on Facebook, where he began speaking more to his followers and to me. What's up, guys? Something is going on. I got some guys over here. This in itself is taking control of the communication. He wants his words and his voice to be heard and not yours.

You can answer my question. There's no Ura here. We also tried to ask the man about another striking similarity between him and Ura in the real world.

“Will Ura road us and said that he recently taken his money and opened a new restaurant?”

Would you have done that? What restaurant are you talking about again? This restaurant, not far from where we met him. He opened the place in 2018. Just six months later, Ura wrote 48 hours that he had done the same.

Do you run these murder for higher website? I'm calling me some stupid names. Stop recording right now as his anger grew. I'm going to smack the **** out of your camera right now. I'm telling you.

The man suddenly made us an offer. No cameras. I have no idea who is here. I have no idea who's you are. You want to talk to me?

Probably. Let's go to the office, man. You sit down and we'll talk without this.

“I turned him down because the situation was starting to feel dangerous.”

Oh, hey guys. Are you a conversation? Who do you think you are? Who do you think you are? You make us about to take a major hit.

I'm an reporter. I'm an reporter. That's been following this for over a year. Oh, hey, come on. I don't do that.

What the ****? That was just a video back then. You are talking to me right now. I'm asking you a question. We've met a couple.

Yes, we're the police to be. Yes, sir. I didn't hit you. I didn't hit you. I hit your camera and you did it with your own hands.

I'll come in. We quickly left the sea. They're chickened out right away. And the man still angry continue to stream live. Stupid website.

Some freak-grade is something used by identity. Someone's using my identity. He's confirming that the information that we've presented to him is legit. Yes, I'm asking you the question. You're seeing you off.

Based on all of the evidence that has been accumulated, my confidence is still quite high. In fact, she says, having seen the video, it's even higher. Around 80 to 90%. Over the next two weeks, we reached out to the man four times, requesting an on-camera interview at CBS News.

To give a call back and let us know your decision. We were eager to hear any explanation for the apparent links between him and Europe. He apologized for his actions. Who you think you are?

But never sat down on camera.

Adrian, this is Peter Vansant. Or Adrian Fry. He did text us. Hi, Peter. I can assure you that I did not go onto the online web to hire a hitman or anyone to kill Alexis.

But it was his last text.

Thank you for the opportunity he wrote. We realized that just like Mastermind 365, Adrian had once again written thank you as one word.