# Do professional, non state affiliated assassins really exist? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [January 25, 2025, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-professional-non-state-affiliated-assassins-really-exist/1013402 "2025-01-25T23:41:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![dorvann](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/df705f/32.png) [@dorvann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dorvann)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2025, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-professional-non-state-affiliated-assassins-really-exist/1013402/21 "2025-01-27T16:20:35Z")
Thank you for clarifying. Incidentally the few **legitimate** Special Forces veterans have very little desire to be in an occupation that would require them to use violence. (I say “legitimate” because there are plenty of people out there who lie about being “Special Forces” veterans. In my experience the more boastful a “veteran” is about being in combat the more likely they are posers,) ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2025, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-professional-non-state-affiliated-assassins-really-exist/1013402/22 "2025-01-27T16:33:27Z")
As a veteran who spent a career working with lots of veterans, including special operators, I agree in general. The louder the talk, the smaller the reality. But there are definitely a lot of jobs in the physical security / bodyguard arena that are taken up by those folks. Their workaday intent is never to use violence, but to be able to credibly threaten it by their mere appearance and demeanor, and instantly back it up with the real thing if needed. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2025, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-professional-non-state-affiliated-assassins-really-exist/1013402/23 "2025-01-27T17:26:17Z")
Richard Kuklinski did hits for the mafia. > **[Richard Kuklinski](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Kuklinski)** > > Richard Leonard Kuklinski (/kʊˈklɪnski/: April 11, 1935 – March 5, 2006), also known as the Iceman, was an American criminal and a convicted killer. He was engaged in criminal activities for most of his adult life, he ran a burglary ring and distributed pirated pornography. Kuklinski committed at least five murders between 1980 and 1984. Prosecutors described him as killing for profit. He was nicknamed the "Iceman" by authorities after they discovered that he had frozen the body of one of his The issue is that if you’re good at being a hired killer, you won’t get caught. Not only that, but nowadays you can just poison someone to make their death look like death from natural causes or death from OD. So a truly competent professional killer won’t even arouse suspicion that people are dying violently. Thats one of the issues I have with Epsteins death. If someone wanted to kill epstein you can just quickly knock him out with drugs and then give him a poison that would look like death from natural causes. That would arouse much less suspicion than death from suicide. When the Israeli hit team murdered Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh in a hotel in Qater, they did it in such a way that it looked like death from natural causes. They still aren’t sure how he died. If he was drugged and suffocated, if he was electrocuted, if he was poisoned. > **[Assassination of Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Mahmoud_Al-Mabhouh#Cause_of_death)** > > The assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh (Arabic: محمود المبحوح, Maḥmūd al-Mabḥūḥ; 14 February 1961 – 19 January 2010) took place on 19 January 2010, in a hotel room in Dubai. Al-Mabhouh—a co-founder of the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas—was wanted by the Israeli government for the kidnapping and murder of two Israeli soldiers in 1989 as well as purchasing arms from Iran for use in Gaza; these have been cited as a possible motive for the assassination. > His assassina... The CIA had a weapon in the 1970s that could fire a pellet that caused death that looked like death from a heart attack. I’m sure they have much more advanced weapons now. [https://www.military.com/video/guns/pistols/cias-secret-heart-attack-gun/2555371072001](https://www.military.com/video/guns/pistols/cias-secret-heart-attack-gun/2555371072001) I have no evidence of this, but among the rich and quasi-powerful, I’m sure there is a market for people who can kill others and make it look like death from natural causes or OD. If there is a market, I wouldn’t be surprised if people have filled that market. ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2025, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-professional-non-state-affiliated-assassins-really-exist/1013402/24 "2025-01-27T17:34:05Z")
I mean they definitely exist. If you are a drug baron you absolutely have people on staff who’s primary job function is to kill people on request. If you are legitimate businessman however you aren’t going to find one of them, you are much more likely to find an undercover cop pretending to be one. Of course the number of legitimate businessmen (by some definition of legitimate) who know drug barons is not zero. So if they are ok with pretty much owned by a drug baron for the rest of their life, I’m sure their drug baron buddy would be happy to put them in touch with someone who could “solve your problem”. ---
**Author:** ![sb1953](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a87d85/32.png) [@sb1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sb1953)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2025, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-professional-non-state-affiliated-assassins-really-exist/1013402/25 "2025-01-27T18:15:44Z")
I read the book “I heard you paint houses” the story of the man who killed Jimmy Hoffa. Killing was not the only thing he did, he also had a cover job as well as a position in the mafia. The book was very convincing. ---
**Author:** ![FlikTheBlue](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fliktheblue/32/10972_2.png) [@FlikTheBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlikTheBlue)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2025, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-professional-non-state-affiliated-assassins-really-exist/1013402/26 "2025-01-27T18:19:00Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > I’m thinking the more killing you do the more likely you are to be caught. Or worse. If Hollywood is to be believed, part of the process, especially when the client is private citizen rather than a drug lord or mafioso, is that once the deed is done, the person who hired the hitman “cleans up the loose ends” by killing the hitman. ---
**Author:** ![FrenchDunadan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/frenchdunadan/32/5449_2.png) [@FrenchDunadan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FrenchDunadan)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2025, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-professional-non-state-affiliated-assassins-really-exist/1013402/27 "2025-01-27T18:23:20Z")
and then you need to kill the killer’s killer, and then the killer’s killer’s killer, and… it’s killers all the way ! There is too much risks involved and too few occurrences to have a viable business plan. But criminals will always have a guy stupid or violent enough to go murder a target. That the killer survives or gets killed (maybe by the contractor) is a wild guess. ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2025, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-professional-non-state-affiliated-assassins-really-exist/1013402/28 "2025-01-27T18:42:00Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > When the Israeli hit team murdered Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh in a hotel in Qater, they did it in such a way that it looked like death from natural causes. They still aren’t sure how he died. If he was drugged and suffocated, if he was electrocuted, if he was poisoned. > > [Assassination of Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Mahmoud_Al-Mabhouh#Cause_of_death) > > The CIA had a weapon in the 1970s that could fire a pellet that caused death that looked like death from a heart attack. I’m sure they have much more advanced weapons now. So as examples these really make the opposite point, if the most secret parts of the most powerful state run intelligent agencies on the planet were not able to keep these secret, the chances of a random private hit man hired by a rich guy being able to is close to nil. If there is a wikipedia page titled “Assassination of X” then your intelligence agency has done a really bad job of secretly killing X and making it look like natural causes. And if a state run intelligence agency with a huge “secretly killing dudes” budget is not able to do it, a private hit man doesn’t stand much chance. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2025, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-professional-non-state-affiliated-assassins-really-exist/1013402/29 "2025-01-27T23:11:43Z")
> [@griffin1977](#): > > > [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > > > When the Israeli hit team murdered Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh in a hotel in Qater, they did it in such a way that it looked like death from natural causes. They still aren’t sure how he died. If he was drugged and suffocated, if he was electrocuted, if he was poisoned. > > > > [Assassination of Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Mahmoud_Al-Mabhouh#Cause_of_death) > > > > The CIA had a weapon in the 1970s that could fire a pellet that caused death that looked like death from a heart attack. I’m sure they have much more advanced weapons now. > > So as examples these really make the opposite point, if the most secret parts of the most powerful state run intelligent agencies on the planet were not able to keep these secret, the chances of a random private hit man hired by a rich guy being able to is close to nil. > > If there is a wikipedia page titled “Assassination of X” then your intelligence agency has done a really bad job of secretly killing X and making it look like natural causes. And if a state run intelligence agency with a huge “secretly killing dudes” budget is not able to do it, a private hit man doesn’t stand much chance. Yes, but this is the one they got caught on. Who knows how many others they got away with. Thats like saying that just because the government got caught committing Iran Contra that they’ve never gotten away with anything. Also someone with lock picking tools and a dropper bottle filled with high concentration carfentanil can kill someone in the middle of the night and make it look like an accidental OD. There are lots of others poisons too. I’m not even a hitman and even I know that. If the person doesn’t have a dog that barks or a home security system, it’ll just look like another OD. Or there are poisons like the one in the heart attack gun. The Israelis were trying to kill one of the founders of Hamas who was hiding in a foreign nation. ---
**Author:** ![Projammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/projammer/32/559_2.png) [@Projammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Projammer)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2025, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-professional-non-state-affiliated-assassins-really-exist/1013402/30 "2025-02-03T00:41:57Z")
[The poison-tipped umbrella: the death of Georgi Markov in 1978 - archive](https://www.theguardian.com/world/from-the-archive-blog/2020/sep/09/georgi-markov-killed-poisoned-umbrella-london-1978) > “Mr Markov has died of toxaemia[sic] caused by the implantation of a metal pellet containing ricin, and that it is quite impossible that this was done by Mr Markov himself.” ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2025, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-professional-non-state-affiliated-assassins-really-exist/1013402/31 "2025-02-03T03:31:58Z")
> [@Leaper](#): > > I know governments have huge massively funded systems devoted to train killers of all kinds. They do? I mean they have agents, and agents sometimes have to kill someone- but I dont think most nations have a cadre of killers who that is their primary function. > [@wguy123](#): > > No, they don’t exist outside Hollywood. Right, I mean the mob has enforcers and hitmen, but hitmen dont sit around all the time waiting for the kill order. They are just thugs that are okay with killing. > [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > The professional high profile contract assassin is as much a manufacture of Hollywood and thriller authors like Robert Ludlum as the jet-setting secret agent with a “license to kill” who is recognized by every hotel manager and casino manager as their best customer. It doesn’t work for the reasons you mentioned; cultivating a reputation to earn fees of hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars per ‘job’ would also make that person extremely vulnerable to being baited and captured by law enforcement, and there frankly just aren’t enough of those kinds of jobs to sustain such an industry. Right. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2025, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-professional-non-state-affiliated-assassins-really-exist/1013402/32 "2025-02-03T16:42:31Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > Richard Kuklinski did hits for the mafia. > > [Richard Kuklinski - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Kuklinski) Probably not. He certainly was a murderer but he murdered on his own to rob people. He loved the attention after he got caught and confessed to a lot of things he didn’t do. Real mobsters who had nothing to lose due to immunity have stated they never heard of him. Other than his mouth there is nothing linking him to any mob hit. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2025, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-professional-non-state-affiliated-assassins-really-exist/1013402/33 "2025-02-03T17:02:24Z")
Here’s the thing; if professional assassins existed, there’s be a lot more assassinations. Business leaders and politicians would be dropping like flies. A lot of people have every reason to have many names you can all guess I could name - it’s maybe best I not name them - bumped off tomorrow. There are THOUSANDS, tens of thousands, of notable individuals who’d have bullets flying at them and poison in their food. When a famous (ETA: Major. Not famous) businessman did get murdered, it was a lone nut, not a professional killer. If professional killers were available, CEOs would have a lower life expectancy than North Koreans who offend Kim. The reason it doesn’t happen is that there aren’t any assassins to hire you could trust. Whenever you heard about the cops busting up a murder for hire scheme, the people involved are amateurish clowns who couldn’t come up with a good plan to choose a place for lunch and they were trying to kill someone’s ex-husband. I would even struggle to believe a Barry-type assassin exists. Barry, for those who haven’t seen the show, was a low level hood who killed for hire but his targets were also low level hoods. Even then, as Stranger points out, renting oneself out for such things would be easily detected by the cops. ---
**Author:** ![dasmoocher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/dbc845/32.png) [@dasmoocher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dasmoocher)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2025, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-professional-non-state-affiliated-assassins-really-exist/1013402/35 "2025-05-29T20:48:01Z")
I’ve posted this before in another thread. It’s from David Simon’s (creator of _The Wire_) _Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets_ book. Simon compares and contrasts the way amateur and professional killers behave in the interrogation room after being arrested: > For that reason, the professionals say nothing. No alibis. No explanations. No expressions of polite dismay or blanket denials. In the late 1970s, when men by the names of Dennis Wise and Vernon Collins were matching each other body for body as Baltimore’s premier contract killers and no witness could be found to testify against either, things got to the point where both the detectives and their suspects knew the drill: > > Enter room. > Miranda. > Anything to say this time, Dennis? > No, sir. Just want to call my lawyer. > Fine, Dennis. > Exit room. I don’t know if they had day jobs. Probably something criminal. But they weren’t Carlos the Jackal, international assassin from Ludlum’s novels. ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2025, 11:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-professional-non-state-affiliated-assassins-really-exist/1013402/36 "2025-05-30T11:54:31Z")
There was a case near where I live (no, these things don’t normally happen), a spillover from murky financial dealings in Russia, with speculation that the perpetrator was Serbian, or Chechen. It looks as though the case might be warming up again > **[Attack on Russian banker in London leaves trail of clues back to Moscow](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/mar/30/russian-banker-london-clues-moscow?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other)** > > German Gorbuntsov case is likely to be linked to murky world of business and crime, but uncovering truth will not be easy > **[Major step in hunt for Russian hitmen who shot banker in Canary Wharf](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14494201/Russian-Canary-Wharf-banker-gorbuntsov-assasins.html)** > > German Gorbuntsov, nicknamed the 'Black Banker', was shot several times outside his lavish apartment building in Canary Wharf in March 2012 by a would-be assasin. ---
**Author:** ![Spiderman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spiderman/32/230_2.png) [@Spiderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiderman)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2025, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-professional-non-state-affiliated-assassins-really-exist/1013402/37 "2025-05-30T22:24:29Z")
> [@FrenchDunadan](#): > > and then you need to kill the killer’s killer, and then the killer’s killer’s killer, and… it’s killers all the way ! When someone is murdered, they always look to those close to them, relatives, neighbors or cow-orkers w/ a beef, etc. Killing is the easy part; getting away with it is much, much, _much_ tougher! _Hypothetically_, we know each other I wanna off you, so I hire **FlikTheBlue** (the random poster above you) to whack you. Once the cops find this site, & a withdrawal from my acct & then a corresponding deposit a day later in **Flik** account, they suddenly want to talk to him. Since I want to ‘clean up loose ends’ I then hire someone else to whack **Flik** (sorry, buddy 🥴) All I need to do is provide enough degrees of separation that the trail goes cold. I never get charged with any of it; however, I do need to work an extra couple of years to cover all of those 401(k) withdrawals. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2025, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-professional-non-state-affiliated-assassins-really-exist/1013402/38 "2025-05-30T23:36:50Z")
Paging **Stranger\_on\_a\_Train** 😉 ---
**Author:** ![filmore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7993a0/32.png) [@filmore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmore)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2025, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-professional-non-state-affiliated-assassins-really-exist/1013402/39 "2025-05-30T23:41:56Z")
> [@Spiderman](#): > > Since I want to ‘clean up loose ends’ I then hire someone else to whack **Flik** (sorry, buddy 🥴) You might run into the case where the hitman you hire subcontracts the hit to another hitman, who subcontracts it to another hitman, and so on, getting worse hitmen each time. Eventually someone blabs and everyone is caught: > **[Hitman hires hitman who hires hitman who hires hitman who hires hitman](https://metro.co.uk/2019/10/23/hitman-hires-hitman-hires-hitman-hires-hitman-hires-hitman-tells-police-10971438/)** > > A businessman and the hapless assassins he hired were all convicted of attempted murder. > [@](#): > > However, hitman number five was so incensed at how much the value of the contract had fallen, that he told the target to fake his own death, which eventually led to the police finding out about the plot, Beijing News reported. Just goes to show that if you want a job done right, you have to do it yourself 😎 ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2025, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-professional-non-state-affiliated-assassins-really-exist/1013402/40 "2025-05-31T00:05:22Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > Paging **Stranger\_on\_a\_Train** 😉 Ya gotta @ him. @Stranger_On_A_Train , we have a job for you. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2025, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-professional-non-state-affiliated-assassins-really-exist/1013402/41 "2025-05-31T00:20:46Z")
Nobody has ever put a body on me. I stick with character assassinations and calling up the unholy entities that reside in the deep void of incomprehensible dimensions to take care of that kind of thing because I’m not going to stay and clean up. Stranger [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-professional-non-state-affiliated-assassins-really-exist/1013402.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-professional-non-state-affiliated-assassins-really-exist/1013402.md?page=3)