Slashdot Mirror
Another Major Spammer Busted
Iphtashu Fitz writes "25 year old Christopher William Smith, considered one of the worlds biggest spammers by the Spamhaus Project, is now sitting in a jail without bond. Smith allegedly had a doctor issue 72,000 prescriptions in the space of one year in conjunction with orders obtained through spamming. The doctor, Philip Mach, had a license to practice medicine in New Jersey but he provided prescriptions to people throughout the United States without ever evaluating them, both of which are big no-no's. Federal authorities have already seized over $3 million in cash, luxury cars, and houses."
As much as I approve of crimes like this... I just don't get why they don't know when to stop.
If you've made 3 million... walk away with what ya have. It's not worth pursuing another 3 million to risk losing it ALL.
Greed.
Ah well, no respect to dumb greedy criminals.
We have secretly replaced these Slashdot mods' sense of humor with a rusty nail. Let's see if they notice!!
Is smack every one of the 72000 people who bought perscriptions from this guy. I don't think we'll ever really get rid of spammers until it's not profitable for them anymore. The best way to do that is to not buy anything from them.
Burn, you son-of-a-b*tch.
Prescription drug abuse/diversion is a major problem... I get hit with drug seekers in my ER every single day. Some of these people have legitimate chronic pain conditions and need to be under the care of a pain specialist, while others are simply using narcotics to treat their psychological pain (or just gathering "party supplies" for the weekend). Some of these people self-medicate and push their vicodin/lortab dose until they get acetaminophen toxic... bad way to end up on the liver transplant list.
And before somebody says it, no, I don't think drug legalization is the answer.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
Print adds in my mailbox are 100 times worse than electronic spam... At least the only resources being pissed away by e-spam are electricity, network bandwidth, and time.
Snail Spam wastes trees, oil, electricity, & time and ultimately only serves to keep the postal service in business and keeping landfills a growth market. I somehow manage to recieve 5 times more physical spam than electronic spam in my personal mailboxes.
I hate both, but if I had to choose which one to erradicate, it would be the physical variety.
And the corrolary from that is that how on *earth* did the doctor think he'd get away with that? The DEA has systems that track that kind of thing, and they're *very* public in letting doctors know about it. Supposedly the DEA monitors annual prescription rates of proscribed medications (pain meds, mostly) . I guess they saw the massive uptick in prescriptions by this doctor and called the goon squad.
But again, how on *earth* did the doctor think he could get away with that?
-EvilMagnus
Several bits of news here that shocked me:
72,000 people out there actually put pills in their bodies which came from a spammer who spells it "V1Ag ra!!!"
There was an actual doctor writing precriptions for these drugs, not just some sleazy smuggler from bolivia or some nutjob with a lab for making counterfeit placebo replacements.
The bastards are actually got caught at all, and did not turn out to be some distant Russian or Maylaysian hackers far beyond the reach of our law enforcement systems, but rather were a pair of US citizens dumb enough to think they could get away with it.
This is terrific news. Hoist a beer to your friendly neighborhood cyber-cop tonight, folks. It's not often the spooks get to be universally seen as the Good Guys.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
It's the illegal prescriptions.
He sold $20,000,000 of hydrocodone in less than a year. I think the bigger question is how the hell he could sell that much of a tightly controlled narcotic before getting busted.
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
Think about it. You sell ED medicine and generic monoxydil products... or whatever.
Are you going to ask a lot of questions if a new customer comes along and starts providing you with millions of dollars worth of orders? Would you be inclided to view their decision to order all these drugs from your manufacturing plant as "suspicious" or "lucky"?
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.