US teenager was behind deadly substance in 'Breaking Bad' poison case

Jesse Korff sent Kuntal Patel the deadly poison Abrin which he had made in his home-based lab

Jesse Korff sold the poison to Kuntal Patel
Jesse Korff sold the poison to Kuntal Patel

The teenager who supplied Kuntal Patel with the deadly poison Abrin was caught in an FBI sting and has admitted conspiring with her to kill her mother.

Jesse Korff, 19, was arrested in January this year after agents posed as buyers on his dark website in an urgent bid to stop him sending a second dose of the lethal substance to Patel, after the first batch had failed.

Korff made the chemicals in a "semi-professional" lab in his home in LaBelle, Florida, with equipment he had stolen from work.

He boasted to Patel how he had sent Abrin to other customers and it had worked as it should.

Abrin comes from the rosary pea which grew in abundance in his local area.

Korff operated under the name Snowman 840 on “Black Market Reloaded”, a heavily encrypted dark website and sold his items by Bitcoins.

He advertised Abrin as something that would cause “a horrible death”.

He offered “the sale of deadly toxins and provided his prospective purchasers with information about quantities necessary to kill a person of a given weight, along with instructions on how to secretly administer the toxin to avoid suspicion”, according to FBI documents.

The FBI began monitoring the BMR site from April last year and Korff later came to their attention.

In January this year, agents became aware he was planning to send a second dose of Abrin to a customer in the UK, who was planning to kill her mother.

Kuntal Patel and the package the neighbour received, with the poison hidden in a candle

Kuntal Patel and the candle the poison was hidden in (METROPOLITAN POLICE)

It was not clear exactly when the FBI first knew that an initial dose had been sent.

To prevent the second being despatched, officers posed as customers and arranged for Korff to sell them two vials.

He hid the substance inside candles, as before, and placed them in a fast food bag.

After the exchange was made, on January 18, Korff was arrested.

A three day search of his home revealed several computers, castor beans, rosary peas, capsules, vials, jars, syringes, filters, respirators and other items related to the manufacture, production, sale, packaging, and shipping of toxins and chemical substances.

Among the items recovered was a liquid dose of abrin that Korff had planned to send to Patel.

He investigation included FBI experts in weapons of mass destruction.

In August, Korff admitted in a federal court to producing and selling potentially deadly toxins ricin and abrin for use as weapons and conspiring to kill a woman in the United Kingdom.

He is due to be sentenced next month and could face life imprisonment.

U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman said: “Working in the shadows of a secretive computer network favoured by cybercriminals, he peddled his poison on a virtual black market of illegal and dangerous goods.

“Today he admitted he was in the midst of aiding an overseas customer in an attempted murder. Thankfully, an undercover law enforcement officer posing as a buyer was able get Korff off the street before he could conclude the transaction.”