It was only last May when we heard that Robert Alan Soloway was finally arrested for a variety of fraud charges stemming from his rampant illegal spamming. Now comes news that another long-time spammer, Alan Ralsky, has been indicted on very similar charges, this time relating to your typical "pump and dump" stock scamming. He's not alone either: he's only one of ten (10) individuals facing US federal charges including conspiracy, wire fraud, mail fraud, money laundering and computer fraud.
There are distinct similarities between Soloway and Ralsky, not least of which is their continual boasting about how untouchable they were, how they'd never allow themselves to face charges relating to their spamming practices, and that they'd never serve a single day in jail. For Soloway: that last one is already out the window, as he's been in custody since May in a federal penitentiary, and will remain there until his trial begins sometime this year (no date has yet been confirmed.)
Another similarity: These two individuals have been responsible for an overwhelming amount of junk email since approximately 1995.
If you look at Ralsky's Wikipedia entry, you can see a familiar pattern of fraud perpetrated over a very long period of time which actually predates his attraction to the Internet as a method for perpetrating these crimes.
I'm not entirely sure why an FBI raid on Ralsky's property in September of 2005 failed to result in any charges against him. The most often-quoted statement Ralsky made about it at the time sums it up: "They didn't shut us down. They took all our equipment, which had the effect of shutting us down." That definitely impacted his ability to profit quickly, but why weren't there any charges laid then? Whatever it was that has taken from 2005 until early 2008 to culminate in this litany of serious charges must have some serious evidence to back it up, and some lengthy investigations by a large number of law enforcement departments. Obviously that takes time.
Unlike Soloway, Ralsky seems to have made his fraud career into a family affair, involving his son in law Scott K. Bradley. This is not the first time he's involved relatives either: Bradley's home was also raided in September 2005. In stark contrast, Soloway appears to have been a bit of a loner, and virtually barricaded himself inside his posh Seattle apartment to continue his scamming activity.
In both the Soloway and the Ralsky indictments, one thing is clear: anti-spam laws are definitely the weakest link in the entire chain in terms of bringing charges that will stick, and in particular the CAN-SPAM law has absolutely no teeth whatsoever for this purpose. In both cases, the focus is much more distinctly on the material crimes of fraud and money laundering, much less so on the rampant abuse of computer systems (renting / leasing and using botnets, probably using hijacked public servers, etc.) and mass emailing millions of recipients who never wanted any of their crap in the first place, using fake headers the whole way. These crimes unfortunately don't appear to be seen as the serious problems that they are based on previous attempts to charge criminals under CAN-SPAM. Spammers abuse systems around the world and know that the law will never make any charges stick regarding these abuses. It's frustrating to me and many others that this crime is still not taken seriously in the courts.
Having said that: removing such a large scale fraud operation, by whatevere means, is most definitely something to be happy about. I don't care how they chose to promote it: fraud is fraud. Ripping people off is a crime. Ripping people off repeatedly is a crime. Each of their counts carry massive fines (up to $250,000 for each count, and there are several counts each) and lengthy jail terms (up to 20 years in federal prison for each count of many of the charges.) Since Ralsky has been so boastful about how much he loves spamming people, I'm sure that he'll remain in custody for many months leading up to his trial, whenever that takes place.
And it's not even a full week into the New Year. :)
Happy New Year, everyone. Let's hope we see a lot more arrests like these in the coming months.
SiL / IKS / concerned citizen
P.S. All of the stories related to these charges only mention that "Chinese companies" were affected by his stock spamming. I'm going to predict right here that two of those companies were CYTV (China YouTV) and CWTD (China World Trade Corp.). All of us saw rampant spam runs for these two stocks for well over two full years. They both appeared to be totally fictitious "companies" which existed only on paper, and apparently solely for the purposes of stock market fraud and manipulation. (I wrote about CWTD previously.)
If I'm right, you owe me a beer. :)
Showing posts with label fraud. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fraud. Show all posts
Friday, January 4, 2008
Friday, December 7, 2007
Fake Diplomas Are Illegal
Many people wonder what the deal is with ridiculous spam messages such as these:
This is what's referred to as "Diploma Mill" spam. If it sounds shady, that's because it is. In fact it's 100% illegal to sell fake diplomas, and more importantly it's a crime to represent yourself as having earned such a degree when applying for work.
The spam operation works like this:
- A sponsor handles the printing and shipping of the fake diplomas.
- Sponsor contacts spammers / mailers in the hopes of drumming up leads
- Spammer sends a message to millions of recipients (who probably, like me, don't want them)
- Inevitably one or two of them call the number, which is a voicemail prompt which reads as follows (for the number above, anyway - it varies):
From there, the spammer provides your voicemail response to the diploma sponsor. Lately that process has become a bit more labor intensive for the spammer, since (of course) so many people DON'T want to be contacted regarding this so-called "offer." As a result, several angry recipients of these emails have left voicemails in the hopes of tracking down who is behind them. This leads to issues for the spammer, who previously used to just hand over the voicemails only to be told by a pissed-off diploma sponsor that 4 out of 5 of the calls were angry complaints, or legitimate sounding responses that led to an angry person at the other end of the phone when it came time to reel them in.
So now the spammers have to filter out the complainers from the legitimate people who want to illegally purchase their fake diplomas.
You'll notice that they word the voicemail in such a way as to indicate that you're undergoing some University-style admissions process. In reality this is, as one might expect, a purely commercial process. You want the piece of paper. They want your money. No background check takes place. No school transcripts of any sort are required. All you need is a credit card and an address to ship the phony diploma to. And you're done.
The hazards involved with this flatly illegal practice should be obvious to anyone. Would you trust any new doctor with a diploma on their wall if you were aware that any percentage of real people actively spend their money on these documents? Would you trust a new hire in any field if they presented you with this document as evidence of their expertise? Would you trust a contractor to make any repairs or modifications to your property if they claimed to have a degree or diploma claiming their excellence at what they do?
This kind of fraudulent representation has already happened, and led to some horrifying consequences. In 2003 one Laurence Perry was convicted of manslaughter. He took an 8 year old girl off her insulin and she died. Later, it was discovered that he represented himself with fake medical degrees. That's an old story, so in all likelihood he's out of jail by now.
A similar story unfolded as recently as a week ago, when "Doctor" John Curran was convicted of wire fraud and money laundering, after he "treated" 18 year old Taylor Alves in 2002 for terminal ovarian cancer. He basically ruined her life, which was already in jeopardy after such a crushing diagnosis. He's behind bars for 12 years.
Certainly it's not only medical degrees or MBA's which are on offer from these operations.
The sponsors behind these illegal documents treat it as though it's any other product. One member of bulkerforum.biz (among numerous others) who goes by the name of "Princess" is clearly very experienced in this field. She posted the following back in October of 2007, and apparently generated quite a bit of interest:
Cute. "Princess" Dianna wants to sell us fake degrees.
She continued to push this promotion several more times right through November 2007.
Note the specificity of what constitutes a "good lead". No websites, period. This is probably due to the arrest, prosecution and conviction of sponsors such as Craig and Alton Poe, back in December 2004. You can read a brief description of their conviction here. The story itself is quite entertaining not only because it involves lowlife criminal spammers going to jail, but also because of how it came to the attention of the Pennsylvania Deputy Attorney General:
The main reason it was so easy to prosecute them and send them to jail is because they gathered their so-called "diploma leads" via easy to identify websites. Diploma sponsors couldn't ignore this and so they adopted a variety of alternate methods of generating the leads, most notably via throwaway voicemail phone numbers.
None of this makes the practice any more legal, or any more legitimate. If you attempt to use a fake document to gain employment, that's a crime. in the United States: It's a federal offence. Several states have begun cracking down on these illicit operations, and more than half of the states in the US have specific laws on the books regarding the sale of these documents, or the use of them as personal documentation.
As with most other types of spam-related crime, this is generally considered a variety of fraud.
In the case of the Poe brothers, they also generated fake grades transcripts, which is a further federal offence.
As with most other products promoted via illegal spammers: you should avoid these at all costs. Princess said it herself: "It's so simple just too good to be true."
There is a fantastic blog which tracks illegal diploma mills called (appropriately) diplomamillnews.blogspot.com. Definitely worth a read.
One can only hope that spammers convicted of this type of fraud end up being represented by lawyers with similar "credentials."
SiL / IKS / concerned citizen
F A S T T R A C K D E G R E E P R O G R A M Obtain the degree you=
deserve, based on your present knowledge and life experience. A prospero=
us future, money earning power, and the Admiration of all. Degrees from a=
n Established, Prestigious, Leading Institution. Your Degree will show ex=
actly what you really can do. Get the Job, Promotion, Business Opportunit=
y and Social Advancement you Desire! Eliminates classrooms and traveling.=
Achieve your Bachelors, Masters, MBA, or PhDin the field of your experti=
se Professional and affordable Call now - your Graduation is a phone call=
away. Please call:1-206-888-2083
This is what's referred to as "Diploma Mill" spam. If it sounds shady, that's because it is. In fact it's 100% illegal to sell fake diplomas, and more importantly it's a crime to represent yourself as having earned such a degree when applying for work.
The spam operation works like this:
- A sponsor handles the printing and shipping of the fake diplomas.
- Sponsor contacts spammers / mailers in the hopes of drumming up leads
- Spammer sends a message to millions of recipients (who probably, like me, don't want them)
- Inevitably one or two of them call the number, which is a voicemail prompt which reads as follows (for the number above, anyway - it varies):
Thank you for calling the university degree program. After the tone, please leave your name and two telephone numbers. One where you can be reached during the daytime hours and one for evenings.
Please do speak clearly after the tone. One of the registrars will be in touch with you shortly. Thank you and have a nice day.
From there, the spammer provides your voicemail response to the diploma sponsor. Lately that process has become a bit more labor intensive for the spammer, since (of course) so many people DON'T want to be contacted regarding this so-called "offer." As a result, several angry recipients of these emails have left voicemails in the hopes of tracking down who is behind them. This leads to issues for the spammer, who previously used to just hand over the voicemails only to be told by a pissed-off diploma sponsor that 4 out of 5 of the calls were angry complaints, or legitimate sounding responses that led to an angry person at the other end of the phone when it came time to reel them in.
So now the spammers have to filter out the complainers from the legitimate people who want to illegally purchase their fake diplomas.
You'll notice that they word the voicemail in such a way as to indicate that you're undergoing some University-style admissions process. In reality this is, as one might expect, a purely commercial process. You want the piece of paper. They want your money. No background check takes place. No school transcripts of any sort are required. All you need is a credit card and an address to ship the phony diploma to. And you're done.The hazards involved with this flatly illegal practice should be obvious to anyone. Would you trust any new doctor with a diploma on their wall if you were aware that any percentage of real people actively spend their money on these documents? Would you trust a new hire in any field if they presented you with this document as evidence of their expertise? Would you trust a contractor to make any repairs or modifications to your property if they claimed to have a degree or diploma claiming their excellence at what they do?
This kind of fraudulent representation has already happened, and led to some horrifying consequences. In 2003 one Laurence Perry was convicted of manslaughter. He took an 8 year old girl off her insulin and she died. Later, it was discovered that he represented himself with fake medical degrees. That's an old story, so in all likelihood he's out of jail by now.
A similar story unfolded as recently as a week ago, when "Doctor" John Curran was convicted of wire fraud and money laundering, after he "treated" 18 year old Taylor Alves in 2002 for terminal ovarian cancer. He basically ruined her life, which was already in jeopardy after such a crushing diagnosis. He's behind bars for 12 years.
Certainly it's not only medical degrees or MBA's which are on offer from these operations.
The sponsors behind these illegal documents treat it as though it's any other product. One member of bulkerforum.biz (among numerous others) who goes by the name of "Princess" is clearly very experienced in this field. She posted the following back in October of 2007, and apparently generated quite a bit of interest:
Topic: Mailers needed
princess
Joined: 15 Sep 2006
Posts: 25
PostPosted: Thu Oct 04, 2007 2:24 pm
Post subject: Mailers needed
Hi all.
for those who do not already know :)
I Sponsor a University program.
I am looking for more mailers to join our mailing group because my program is expanding.
A leads related program.
Pay starts at $18 to $20 depending on volume, for a good lead.
Q: What is a good lead?
A: A person who responds to your non URL adds who calls the phone number and leaves his contact information with a working phone number. It's so simple just too good to be true.
I use a non URL add that works through an email voice mail system, there is a phone number in our adds.
Only USA or Canada leads needed.
A qualified Mailer should be able to generate at least 10-20 good leads per day.
12 leads *$20 = 240$ USD a day
The conversion our good mailers have, is 70% good leads and about 30% bad. They make from $500 to $1500 weekly.
Payments, sent weekly via Bank Wire or WU.
I have a very good relationship with all our mailers and treat them well because I recognize that they are the fuel that helps run my business.
Please look me up and we can discuss this further.
You can contact me on ICQ # 338-284-118
Thanks Dianna
Cute. "Princess" Dianna wants to sell us fake degrees.
She continued to push this promotion several more times right through November 2007.
Note the specificity of what constitutes a "good lead". No websites, period. This is probably due to the arrest, prosecution and conviction of sponsors such as Craig and Alton Poe, back in December 2004. You can read a brief description of their conviction here. The story itself is quite entertaining not only because it involves lowlife criminal spammers going to jail, but also because of how it came to the attention of the Pennsylvania Deputy Attorney General:
Colby Nolan (pictured, left) is probably the first animal to hold this distinction -- an executive MBA from a university.
Pennsylvania Attorney General Jerry Pappert isn't amused, since Colby is a pet cat and a Texas-based online college allegedly gave the feline a degree for $399.
...
Pappert's office used the pet cat to investigate an alleged scheme designed to promote and sell bogus online academic degrees.
The main reason it was so easy to prosecute them and send them to jail is because they gathered their so-called "diploma leads" via easy to identify websites. Diploma sponsors couldn't ignore this and so they adopted a variety of alternate methods of generating the leads, most notably via throwaway voicemail phone numbers.
None of this makes the practice any more legal, or any more legitimate. If you attempt to use a fake document to gain employment, that's a crime. in the United States: It's a federal offence. Several states have begun cracking down on these illicit operations, and more than half of the states in the US have specific laws on the books regarding the sale of these documents, or the use of them as personal documentation.
As with most other types of spam-related crime, this is generally considered a variety of fraud.
In the case of the Poe brothers, they also generated fake grades transcripts, which is a further federal offence.
As with most other products promoted via illegal spammers: you should avoid these at all costs. Princess said it herself: "It's so simple just too good to be true."
There is a fantastic blog which tracks illegal diploma mills called (appropriately) diplomamillnews.blogspot.com. Definitely worth a read.
One can only hope that spammers convicted of this type of fraud end up being represented by lawyers with similar "credentials."
SiL / IKS / concerned citizen
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