Perp: Christopher William Smith
Status: Currently resides at the supermax prison in Stillwater, Minn., awaiting trial
Dossier: Who doesn't love getting bombarded continuously with solicitations for sexual enhancement drugs? Apparently, the Feds, who have a point at which they say, Enough is enough.
Perhaps less concerned with our sexual well-being than he first lead us to believe, Christopher William Smith, aka Rizler, almost single-handedly made "Viagra spam" a household phrase, thanks to a relentless campaign advertising his Xpress Pharmacy Direct service through the early 2000s. Perpetually dissatisfied with the performance of his outfit, Rizler pushed on and on, enhancing his illegal business beyond the investigative threshold the Feds use to determine which of the multitude of cybercriminals proliferating the Net has grown big enough to prosecute.
Rizler's rap sheet as a spammer is as complex as his back story is rich. Reportedly a ruthless and paranoid manager, running his business like a prison, Rizler amassed a fortune with the help of a now-discredited physician, who wrote prescriptions for Rizler's business. He was finally arrested in 2005, released pending trial, and then rearrested for an unspecified breach of his pretrial release rules. Most recently, he was accused of attempting to arrange a hit over the phone against a witness --- while incarcerated at the Sherburne County Jail in Minnesota. Apparently, the sophisticated cybercriminal didn't realize that prison officials record all calls that aren't covered by attorney-client privilege. Oops.
Upshot: Sure, Rizler's lockup has coincided with a drop-off in spam for prescription meds, but the vacuum has been more than filled with junk talk of penny stocks, phishing schemes, and the like. Anyone else nostalgic for the good old, bad days of Viagra spam as the lone inbox intrusion?
[ Stupid hacker index | Robert Alan Soloway: A spammer by any other name ]
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