RSSPharmacy Spammer Arrested, Indicted
By Ed Oswald | Published August 25, 2005, 4:10 PM
At just 25 years of age, Christopher Smith of Prior Lake, Minnesota, a southern suburb of Minneapolis, had amassed $1.8 million worth of luxury cars, $1.3 million in cash, and two homes. But Smith's fortunes obtained from sending spam came crashing down Wednesday.
Smith was arrested at his home and indicted on over a dozen federal charges. Some of the charges include conspiracy to dispense controlled substances, distributing controlled substances and introducing misbranded drugs into interstate commerce.
Smith ran a business known as Xpress Pharmacy Direct. Along with Dr. Philip Mach, 47, of Franklin Park, N.J., and Bruce Jordan Lieberman, 45, from Farmingdale, N.Y., the business from a period from March 2004 to May 2005 generated more than $20 million in sales off drugs that contained the addictive painkiller hydrocodone.
Xpress Pharmacy was not checking if those who ordered the painkiller had a prescription for it. Instead it would attempt to sell the drug through spam e-mail, Internet sites and via telemarketing calls.
According to the Spamhaus Project, Smith was one of the world's biggest spammers.
Mach allegedly would write false prescriptions for those who ordered the drug to make it seem legal, and over a year's time had issued some 72,000 prescriptions. Farmingdale, Smith's accountant, would hide the origins of the money and help the business process credit card orders.
None of the parties were commenting publicly on the case. A judge has ordered that Smith be held without bond.
Spammers sucks, I got a Spam mail for cheap Viagra but it didnt have a link where I could buy the goods, Sucks I wanted some j/k maybe.
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|GUILTY.
Lower the spammer into the lion pit, but give him some of those great pain killers he was selling.
Don't want to be cruel and all.
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|In a little over 1 year these guys sold over $20 million of controlled substances to anybody that would pay them.
1) There had to be at least 1 or 2 Overdoses
Will they be responsible for that?
2) Mach was a Pharmacist and writing the prescriptions.
Will he be held responsible for that and loose his PHD and License?
3) Farmingdale was hiding the money so they could get away with it.
Will he be held responsible for that? He should be with Bernie Ebbers right now
First off some of you guys have some pretty weird views or common sense on life in general.
This was a total conspiracy and should be handled as such. All 3 should be held on racketeering charges and be held responsible and loose everything they have. No hiding behind stupid laws. Even Al Capone got convicted on lesser charges and spent his final years in prison.
If anybody OD'd then they should be held on man slaughter charges as well. 3 or 4 life sentences with no easy out.
All records should be investigated and elevated charges should be brought down on the people that purchased from them too. We are way to deep into this game to hear: "I didn't know, I thought it was a legitimate online pharmacy". We should all be tired of hearing the stupid plea by now and again burn them people as well.
Once the idiots stop buying from the net then people like this will go away. Yea they will try and find other scams but at least we won't have to deal with them on the net anymore.
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|YOOOO people they are controlling what we say here on this great site!!!!!
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|Go ahead cut out what I have to say. Where is the right to state your thoughts on a subject. Man this is just not right!!!!!!!!
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|72,000 perscriptions in ONE YEAR...by ONE doctor? Seems like that should of brought up a few read flags about 70,000 perscriptions ago.
My view on this...(and hey its just my opinion)... buying and/or selling the drugs should be legal...but the spam is just plain evil.
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|Do the crime DO THE TIME.
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|Good, justic for this knob. But the a****** in prison
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|Easy come, easy go!:)
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|Funny how all the net-slang gets to you; I saw the word 'pharmacy' and thought 'What a hip way of spelling it'. Then I realised that IS how you spell it...
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|Now thats funny.
Side note: I wonder what the other charges were...
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|You're funny!
That's the funniest post I've read this month!
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|Surely all the guy has done is live the American Dream, like the manufacturers of phen phen and vioxx
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|hmmm were you reading the same arcticle? All he has done is live the dream like the manufacturers of Phen Phen and Vioss? hmm I didnt know them companies were writing 72,000 false prescriptions.
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|I'm neither for not against this business, even though I do not like spam nor telemarketers. People have their reasons for doing things that defy law - the all omnipotent. ;P
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|And that makes it all okay, you whack-job?
I don't give a rat's a** what reasons anyone may have for breaking the law. They knew, they did it, they sure as hell better accept the responsibility and pay for it.
But then again, most folks don't know a damn thing about responsibility anyway, right? Sure as hell don't sound like you do.
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|Is selling drugs so bad, especially to needy addicts or people in need of a cheap alternative? Going the legal route for people without insurance means very high costs, making alternative drugs much more appealing to the masses. Whether rich or poor, it does not matter, spam and telemarketing are annoying. However, giving drugs to people without a proper prescription is just asking to go to jail and being hated on boards like these. Most of you jump the gun way to fast without listing your reasonings. The business made 20 mil in a year, these guys were simply thinking money. It's common everyday tactics people play to create dramatics in order for a life less boring in the relative world. Most people I've met turn out to be either back stabbing buffoons or confused experimentative fellows all looking to get laid and cannot see very far into the future or into themselves.
Before I dwell too far, it is human nature in an unfair environment to try to make a dishonest bigger buck when all else does not work as well.
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|Oh man. I want to write about 10 paragraphs explaining why you're wrong, but in light of what you just said. No argument will ever sway you. You're way out there.
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|You are right, though you're missing out one very important factor: Morals.
In simple, pragmatic, moral terms: these are unregulated money spinners. They deserve what they get.
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|human nature is not an excuse, I'd prefer to live a civilized life. I think you need to meet more people or move to better area.
Buying drugs illegally can be extremely dangerous. There is no or little regulation on a safe dose of that drug.
Doesn't matter how much money this "business" made, I'm sure the angel on his shoulder wasn't saying "this is moral."
That said, just because a drug is legal, doesn't make it right either... Caffeine, nicotine, alcohol can all be terribly addictive and destructive. They all are regulated, it would be immoral for me to create my own cigarettes and by-pass regulation, selling them throught the net. By selling them illegally, my human nature may kick in and I'd decide to put some more addictive things in that would normally be rejected upon inspection.
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|Nice troll, pal.
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|If you want cheap drugs move to Canada. Selling drugs over the NET without presriptions in search for a better life, come on thats insane.
I don't care about his spam or the clowns that made this guy 20 million. I only care about them making an example of these guys. It's bad enough on the streets, we don't need addicts/dealers online also.
"Worm that steals online banking info, created by online drug addict to feed his need."
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|LoL. Give the guy his money. Anyone that buys medicine off the internet is retarded. Arrest all the people that purchased from him and have them put to sleep.
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|I hope they sieze all the assets of these people and use the proceeds to fund the fight against spammers.
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|Maybe a good punishment would be to answer all his spam emails. Individually. hahaha.
Go to his house and pee on his lawn. Or better yet, picket it.
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|lmao.... Prior Lake is blocks from me. bas**** could have been my neighbor.
Too bad they got him locked up... I could easily come up with whole slew of appropriate tortures to keep him occupied for years.
Hell, I'd even open up a web-site dedicated to allowing others to suggest what further horrible mis-treatment we could foist upon him.
See, they're doing this wrong. Don't put him in jail... Give him to US!
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|Spammers generally do not get the "bad a**" respect in prison they feel they should.
He will more than likely get gang raped on a regular basis.
And/Or become someone's sweetheart.
Either way, he will get punished.
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|How do you or anyone know that he'll get punished - at least severely? Perhaps he'll get a year's house arrest or two years in a minimum security (read: Club Med) prison. Maybe a little community service will be thrown in as well. Yes, a veritable slap on the wrist is all he may get for his attrocious crime. I can see it now: the poor guy had a troubled childhood, parents divorced when he was an infant, spent time in a foster home, was beaten...etc. This caused him unspeakable mental anguish, eliciting uncontrollable, irrationable thought processes, unmercifully driving him to an irreversible life of crime. Well, you get the message I think. You'll see, a good, public paid lawyer will get him virtually off the hook.
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|In Russia, not so long ago, a blatant and unstoppable (there is no working legislation re: spam over there yet) spammer standing behind the notorious "English Language Study Centre" was ruthlessly bludgeoned to death in his flat. Nothing of value seemed to be taken. Rumour has it that it was revenge - the spammer seemed to tick off all too many people on that part of Earth.
So, the bloke mentioned in this article is bloody lucky that he was living in US of A... could have been much, much worse than losing cars & house...
Re: daft people who buy substances online... the problem with them is, money paid for the drugs are very often NOT their own, but their relatives', friends, or just stolen from somebody.
In my books, he's guilty of selling illegal substances, and guilty of spamming. Two capital punishments :)
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