No image of Mohammed Ammer Ali is available.

Meet Mohammed Ammer Ali, a Muslim software engineer from the UK. Not content with a high-paying career and two children (who were not his wives), Ali felt the need to connect with his religion on a deeper level. That meant trying to kill as many innocent people as possible.

Ali went into the “dark web” to purchase ricin, lacking the skills to make it himself. He soon found himself in contact with an individual who claimed he could sell and ship ricin to the UK. Of course, that individual was an undercover FBI agent. Ali was scheduled to pay $500 for the ricin… with bitcoins. As anyone with half a brain knows, bitcoin services have been plagued with problems since their inception. Ali likely felt the transaction would be more secure if completed over a bitcoin service.

Ali said he would be a “very good repeat customer,” suggesting he planned to purchase even more ricin. “I do like the idea of five separate vials,” he messaged the undercover agent about the delivery method. “Are we talking Breaking Bad-style?” Of course, his jihad didn’t get that far.

Investigators found searches and notes on his computer like “get pet to murder,” along with “Liverpool pet shop,” “chinchillas Liverpool,” and “small sized pets.” The real gem among the searches, however, was “what poison kills you quick, is foolproof, easily found/made, easily concealed and hard to detect post mortem.” That’s more descriptive than some of the bizarre fetish-porn searches that land people on YDM.

Ali told the court he wanted the ricin for a “peaceful purpose” out of “pure curiosity.” Of course, he left out the detail that he planned on using the citizens of Liverpool as guinea pigs.

“I’ve done a few Google searches but it wasn’t to harm anyone,” he said. “I wasn’t thinking of harming anybody. I mean, it’s on TV and stuff like that. I’m not that type of person.” Uh huh. Sure. So that poison search and “get pet to murder” weren’t related to harming anyone.

The quantity of Ricin Ali attempted to purchase was estimated to be able to kill 700-1400 people. His trial is ongoing.