A Lake in the Hills man taken into custody last week on illicit possession of a lethal amount of puffer fish toxin was about to gain $5 million from his wife's insurance policy.

Edward F. Bachner, aged 35, had a quantity of tetrodotoxin that could kill almost 100 people, informed Chicago Tribune. "That's a lot. It doesn't take much to kill," said FBI Special Agent Robert Holley, chief of the Chicago office's counterterrorism Joint Terrorism Task Force. TTX is a poison obtained from puffer fish that is 1,200 times more deadly than cyanide.

The man ordered 98 milligrams of the poisonous toxin from a chemical company situated in New Jersey. Using the pseudonym Edmond Backer, he pretended to be a doctor researching for an Illinois corporation, EB Strategic Research. An employee at the New Jersey chemical supply company soon announced the federal authorities, which discovered the fact that Bachner's alias and EB Strategic Research were bogus.

Special Agent Mark Mahoney stated under oath in a Rockford courtroom that Bachner told federal agents that a woman whose assassinate he was accused of soliciting in 2006 was his wife. Same year, Bachner was interrogated regarding an e-mail he send asking for a hired gun to take care of a woman in return for $8,000 and an AK-47 assault rifle. According to Mahoney’s testimony, after his apprehension, Bachner told the federal agents that he purchased the puffer fish toxin because he wanted to commit suicide.

Police are investigating whether Bachner had his wife as a target when he asked for vials of the toxic substance, a source informed the Sun-Times the previous week.