I don't know about any "face-saving ruse", whatever that means. But couldn't he have known he was just purchasing "good fakes", for future usage as threats, should he need them?
How did DPR find the hitman? Wouldn't it be reasonable to expect that once the feds had apprehended the admin, that the feds might be impersonating a hitman for said admin? It is after all widely insinuated, among certain crowds, that any hitman you hire on the internet is always a fed.
