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Thanks to suspicious chat logs in the Darknet, the client could be captured (archive image)
Photo: Silas Stein / dpa
The Italian police said they had thwarted a "terrible" act of revenge by a man against his ex-girlfriend.
The suspect had planned an acid attack on his former partner and hired a criminal on the Darknet, the police in Rome said.
The IT specialist was placed under house arrest by the officers and charged with serious bodily harm.
The man had planned the attack "down to the last detail," said the police.
He wanted to hurt his ex-girlfriend so badly that she would have to rely on a wheelchair.
To this end, he wanted to transfer a "considerable sum in Bitcoin" for the crime to a criminal he had met on the Darknet, according to the information.
The 40-year-old had apparently already made an initial down payment.
The Italian news agency AGI reported, citing a court document, that the perpetrator should receive a total of almost 10,000 euros.
Police said they started the investigation in February after being alerted by colleagues from another European country who discovered suspicious chat logs on the darknet.
In recent years Italy has seen several particularly gruesome incidents of violence against women, including acid attacks and murders.
In most cases, they were committed by men who wanted to take revenge on their partners or former partners.
Of the 111 women murdered in Italy in 2019, 55 were killed by their husband or partner and 13 by their ex-boyfriend, according to the state statistics agency Istat.
kim / AFP