A man who tried to hire a hit man to kill a rival was sentenced to more than 15 years in prison

Not long after Xin Guang-Go’s skill game business in North Philadelphia collapsed — a development that led to tension between him and his onetime business partner — Guang-Go decided he wanted his former colleague to die.

To follow through on his threat, Guang-Go sought to hire a hit man — supplying the man with his target’s address, pictures of his intended victim’s car and home, as well as a cash deposit and a tip about where his rival might be storing about $100,000 in a safe.

Guang-Go said the hit man could keep that money as long as the murder was carried out. And he also asked that his target’s girlfriend be killed in the process. For both killings, Guang-Go was willing to pay $30,000.

But unknown to Guang-Go, the hit man he tried to hire was working as a confidential informant for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. Guang-Go was arrested before either of his victims was harmed.

In federal court Monday, Guang-Go, 48, of Plymouth, N.C., was ordered to serve more than 15 years in prison for seeking to carry out his scheme — a plot that U.S. District Judge Harvey Bartle III said was one of the most serious crimes a person could commit.

“It’s totally unacceptable to settle a business dispute by entering into a contract to have your opponent murdered,” Bartle said.

Guang-Go apologized, saying he had been consumed by impulses he now recognizes were wrong.

It was “as if there was evil in my heart,” he said through an interpreter. “Evil was controlling my brain.”

Neither of Guang-Go’s victims appeared in court Monday. Assistant U.S. Attorney Amanda McCool said both remain traumatized by his attempt on their lives.

She said Guang-Go was not simply an unlucky or bumbling criminal who made a deal with the wrong source. He fully intended for his victims to die, she said — and in court documents, prosecutors said he had asked his would-be hired killer to provide photographic proof that the victims had been slain.

“This is not some one-off of the defendant, that [he] ran into someone who suggested” the plot, McCool said. “Throughout the course of a week, he made multiple proactive steps to further his plan.”

Guang-Go — who pleaded guilty this spring to murder-for-hire offenses — said that he had brought shame to his entire family through his actions, and that he regretted his prison sentence would take him away from his children and his aging mother.

In addition to ordering Guang-Go to 188 months behind bars, Bartle imposed a three-year term of supervised release.

Guang-Go, a native of China and a legal permanent resident of the United States, is likely to be deported whenever his term of incarceration is finished.