Spammer Gets Life Imprisonment for Online Spamming

Christopher Smith, an Internet Spammer, who earned $24 Million through Internet to sell prescribed drugs to addicts, could get life imprisonment. The prosecutors have charged him with crimes like violation of various rules and court orders, obstruction of justice, and hiring of a hitmen to murder a witness and his wife.

He is of 27, belongs to Burnsville and is a high school dropout who becomes notorious by the name of a computer spammer "Rizler". His notorious spamming activities started when he was a teen only. He started to propagate fake and dubious materials online. Gradually, he goes to selling prescribed painkillers through an online company known as "Xpress Pharmacy Direct".

As per the prosecutors' opinion in the court documents, Smith uses the telemarketing call centers in Burnsville and Dominican Republic to invite customers and place orders, knowing fully well that they are addicts. From the very beginning, Smith identified that his victims are mostly the addicts, but that only indicates repeat sales and he exploited their addictions very well by calling them on a regular basis, as per the new by Postbulletin on July 31, 2007.

In May 2005, Smith went to Dominican Republic to build up an Internet pharmacy there. His plan was to construct up his luring business worldwide where the US authorities cannot attack him and order him to close his business. Smith was arrested when he returned to Minnesota.

As per the documents of court, in August 2006, Smith and others were caught in the online pharmacy scheme. Smith was sent to a halfway house, but the officials soon found that he carries a PDA and a laptop smuggled for him.

Further, Smith also made a phony attorney number and used the Internet to have calls to that number forwarded to an associate in Philippines. The authorities found it and later came to know that Smith was making extra calls with the phone access number of another inmate and started recording these calls. And finally, on March 4, 2006, they discovered that Smith is planning to kill a witness before she testifies against him.

The prosecutors said that Smith has disobeyed the judiciary. When he found that he is being investigated, he started hiding cash and luxury cars in storage facilities and in Canada under some fake names.

Related article: Spammers Continue their Campaigns Successfully

» SPAMfighter News - 8/10/2007