I’m pretty sure for $50,000, I could find someone with the necessary skills who would be willing to take the job (though probably not without attracting some unwanted attention).
What I don’t think I could find is someone who’s primary source of income is $50,000 contracts to kill people. Are you saying you could? I think such people only work for organized crime or the military and intelligence forces, not as freelancers. (And they get payed modest salaries, not per hit.)
In the last few months we’ve had at least 2 hits in South Africa.
One was a very controversial mining magnate named Brett Kebble
"When Brett Kebble was gunned down in his luxury sedan last September, police initially suspected he was the victim of a botched hijacking. But within 24 hours of the death of this controversial mining magnate, no one believed that his death at the age of 41 was anything but a Mafia-style ‘hit’. " See this link
The othe was anopther businessman named Anwar Mohammed - see this link
I’m pretty sure the “hits” didn’t cost $50 000 but they were definately “murder for hire”. These people were not linked to organised crime but to big business. I’m not sure how “professional” they were, however - so I don’t know if this answers the OP.
I don’t think anyone’s disputing that sometimes people are hired to kill other people for money. What’s being disputed is whether there are people in that category who fit the fictional descriptions of characters in movies like Assassination Tango or Grosse Point Blank as per the OP.
Just poking around, the last posts in this thread seem to indicate that contract killers in one case were paid 300,000 yuan. How much would that be in dollars?
They also seem to have been less than professional: they got caught, the first killer who was paid 160,000 yuan didn’t succeed in killing the target, and similarity between the names - Yuan Baoqi hiring Yuan Baojing and Yuan Baosen - makes me wonder if they were related or knew each other before the incident.
How does this stack up to the possibility we’ve been discussing?
Sorry, you’re right. The fact that they were made to look like hijackings probably doesn’t make them very professional. And I doubt if they were in the really high dollar category being discussed.
However if there are businessmen being killed by hitmen then presumably there is a sort of rarified upper echelon of hitmen and victims. As in most businesses there is always the exclusive and pricey option for the “discerning” buyer.
But the guys who “buy” these hits aren’t businessmen or guys who’ve carried a grudge against some particular person, who then come up with the idea of hiring a professional hitman to solve their problems.
The guys who order these mafia style hits are mafia bosses. The guys who carry out the hits aren’t independent contractors who get bids on contract jobs while sipping martinis in their fasionable apartments. They are lower level mafiosi. They aren’t paid vast sums of money to make their boss’s problem disappear, killing their boss’s enemies is just from time to time part of their job.
Lets put it this way. Tony Soprano kills plenty of people in his line of work. Witnesses, rivals, loose cannons, stoolies, cops, guys who insult him, whatever, he and his gang kill people. But what they don’t do is take a bag full of money from a stranger to have somebody killed. That’s not to say that you couldn’t ask Tony Soprano to kill somebody for you, but he’s only going to kill someone as a favor, and he’s going to want something more than mere cash.
It’s like the old saying, if you owe the bank $1000 dollars and can’t pay you’ve got a problem. But if you owe the bank $1,000,000 dollars and can’t pay the BANK has a problem. But if Tony has someone killed for you Tony doesn’t have a problem…you have a problem, because now Tony owns you.
A very very close friend of mine has a criminal past. He was a gang-banger, and a dealer.
A boyfriend beat the piss out of a very close female friend of his. When he discussed this with the guy above him, he said he had 3 choices:
1- Give a dope fiend extra dope to pull a trigger.
2- Pull a trigger himself.
3- He (the upper guy) could find someone, but it would be expensive and he would end up owing a favor.
I imagine that there are hitmen out there, quietly living quiet lives, and every now and again they go out and do a drive by shooting but actually aim. Or soemthing along those lines.
I wouldn’t go to one for my slowly shrinking “better dead” list, but then, I’m a nice guy, and I don’t have a lot of spare cash.
But again, in this case the hitman wouldn’t be a guy quietly living a quiet life until he gets a call to go out and kill somebody.
Undoubtedly the hitman your drug-dealer buddy’s boss would find would one of his other drug-dealing underlings. In other words, there certainly are people who will kill for money and/or drugs and/or revenge and/or sexual favors and/or other twisted psychological reasons. But the hitman your buddy might or might not have eventually got in contact with certainly wouldn’t be a guy who makes a living solely from assassinations.
Now, I bet the guy your buddy’s boss would dig up would be a lot more competant and discrete than the hitmen who used to advertise in the back pages of “Soldier of Fortune” magazine, or some guy he met in a bar or on the internet. But the boss’s process would be to look up one of his more psychopathic associates (“I’ll talk to Joey…he’s REALLY crazy. I remember this one time…”) and ask him if he wants to earn some extra money. But Joey isn’t gonna be a high-priced assassin for hire. He’d be another example of the low-life career criminal who occasionally kills people we’ve been talking about.
"Okay, Mr. ‘Smith,’ let’s take a look at your resume, shall we? Ah, that actor who had an overdose…you actually killed him. The activist in Fresno who was in a car accident? Ah, yes, you arranged for the ‘accident,’ I see. Oh, and that investigative journalist who had the…‘heart attack,’ very good, Mr. ‘Smith.’ Oh, good, I see the industrialist who ‘slipped’ in the shower was your work—and very good work, too, leaving no signs of violence.
“Good! Everything appears to be in order, Mr. ‘Smith,’ so I’ll happily shell out $50,000 based on a list of accident and natural deaths you claim to have arranged, shall I? Will cash suffice?”
That’s why the discerning hitman always gets video footage of himself peforming the deed! Well, that, and so that he can be assured of execution when he’s caught.
"Hello, Mr. Investigative Journalist, I am Mr. ‘Smith,’ and I’ve been hired to kill you on the basis of some work you have done. In order to record this event, and thereby keep my resume up to date, would you mind signing this release? Otherwise I would have to blur your image, you see, and then some may think I assassinated just any old person! Yes, it is an amusing dilemma…here, take my pen. Thank you.
“Now, I was thinking of having you ‘electrocute yourself’ with an electric razor. Is that too embarrassing? ‘Falling’ down the stairs is popular, you know. Okay, good, electric razor it is.”
Barry Eisler’s John Rain series even has an appendix of supplies for the would be hit man. Plus how much more of a recommendation can you get than your former employer, the CIA, attempting to halt publication?
“For your numerous crimes against humanity, I’ve selected the ‘autoerotic asphyxiation to sheep crush porn’ scenario for you, Mr. <insert name of public figure reader hates most>.”
There’s got to be room for an automated service:
“If you want to be assassinated by a sniper, press one. If you want to be assassinated in the form of a household accident, press two. If you want to be assassinated in the form of an automobile accident, press three. If you want to be slowly skinned alive and covered with salt, press four.”
::bleep::
“You selected 'skinned alive and…”
"Shit, no one. One! One! Oneoneoneoneoneoneone! Cripes…I’m calling my Senator: we need a better assassination service in this country!"