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Pharmacy Spammer Arrested |
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Wednesday, 05 October 2005 |
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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 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. |
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