The Internet`s Most Wanted Spammers - The Spam Hall of Fame
(Page 3 of 4 )
Wow, that was fun. But as you may have noticed, I'm all about history. So let's turn to some of Soloway's contemporaries and see how they look in comparison. My expert prediction is that you'll like them none too much.
Jeremy Jaynes, unlike Soloway, was actually from North Carolina. It was there he would send out hundreds of thousands of junk emails a day under a variety of aliases. He reportedly stole the email addresses from AOL and eBay, among others. His spam campaign primarily advertised "work from home" or "get rich quick" schemes costing around $40 per customer. So despite the minuscule amount of replies he got, he was able to earn up to $750,000 a month. He was convicted in November 2004 and sentenced to nine years in prison. The conviction was twice upheld on appeal, once in 2005 by the Court of Appeals of Virginia and then in 2008 by the Supreme Court of Virginia.
Mugshot - Jeremy Jaynes
Vardan Vardanovich Kushnir was believed to have spammed every single Russian-language Internet user with ads for courses at the American Language Center, which he ran. He had other spam operations, including ads for stocks in a non-registered company, but the ALC was his most prolific campaign. His spam was so widespread that many servers blocked all emails coming from the .ru domain, preventing Russian users from connecting with the rest of the world.
Despite legal sanctions against him in Russia and elsewhere, he was never convicted of a crime. Instead, he was murdered. That's right. In July of 2005, he was found dead in his apartment in Moscow. I know what you're thinking - vigilante justice! Well, not quite. Apparently, up to four women were involved in what they say was self-defense when Kushnir made sexual advances on them.
Davis Wolfgang Hawke, formerly Andrew Britt Greenbaum, was the founder of the American Nationalist Party, a neo-Nazi group whose goal was to make the final solution a reality. His spamming escapades earned him an estimated $600,000 for advertising penis enlargement pills and the nickname "Spam Nazi." In 2004, AOL won a $12.8 million dollar judgment after accusing Hawke of sending unwanted emails to its users.
But that's not all. Apparently, Hawke converted much of his earnings into precious metals (gold, platinum, etc.) and buried them in his parents' backyard! AOL was going to ransack the yard for the hidden booty, but backed off when it was seen as a publicity stunt for a new online game, called Gold Rush. Today, Hawke is said to be hiding somewhere in South America, but this has not been confirmed.
Hawke
As you can see, these spammers have been put out of commission. But there are many others even more dangerous that are still out there.
Next: Have You Seen This Man? >>
More Web Hosting Articles Articles
More By Michael Lowry
