Posted 11/24/09 at 01:55:07 PM by Paul Lilly

The feds have dethroned another "spam king," who, like the ones before him, will spend a little bit of time behind bars. Alan Ralsky, 63, pleaded guilty to commit wire fraud, mail fraud, and to violating the federal CAN-SPAM Act.

What landed Ralsky in hot water was allegedly sending out unsolicited email to jack up the price of penny stock in Chinese companies to artificially high prices, and then selling it. Ralksy's Internet stock scheme netted him $2.7 million, as well as the attention of the feds and ultimately a 4-year prison sentence.

"With today's sentence of the self-proclaimed 'Godfather of Spam,' Alan Ralsky, and three others who played central roles in a complicated stock spam pump and dump scheme, the court has made it clear that advancing fraud through abuse of the Internet will lead to several years in prison," said U.S. Attorney Terrence Berg. "I commend the FBI, the Postal Inspection Service, and the IRS Criminal Investigative Division for their determined and careful investigation in this case which led to today's result."

Ralsky, who pleaded guilty back in June of this year, may have gotten off a little light, as he faced up to 7 years in prison.

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Posted 07/23/08 at 07:44:08 AM by Chris Moody

Unlike other kings, spam king Edward "Eddie" Davidson decided that he didn’t like his new royal domain at the minimum-security federal prison in Florence, Colorado. After serving five weeks of his 21 month sentence his Royal ‘Spamness’ hopped a ride with his wife when she came to visit.

"He jumped in the car with his wife," said Will Cochenour with Lakewood police. "When they were leaving, he forced her in the car, brought them home and left after a change in clothing.” Davidson was last seen Sunday afternoon in his wife's 2006 silver Toyota Sequoia.

Davidson's Power Promoters spamming network promoted junk between 2002 and 2005, gumming up inboxes everywhere.

The U.S. Marshals are leading the search, with help from FBI, IRS and the Rocky Mountain Safe Streets Task Force. This time however they are sure not to take him back to Club Fed, but somewhere with a bit more security, and you can bet he’ll be in for a longer stretch of time too. This is providing that one of his spammed subjects doesn’t run into him first and tar and feather him. While this would make it a great disguise, it is sure to remove hair coming off (ouch).

If you are out looking for the spam king, be sure to imagine him without his royal accoutrements as pictured below.

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