Notorious spammer Alan M. Ralsky was sentenced to more than four years in prison for his involvement in a stock fraud spam scheme. Three of his associates, including his son-in-law, also received prison sentences. The pump-and-dump scheme involved sending spam messages to promote the sale of “pink sheet” stocks, thereby inflating the price so that prior holders of the stock could sell for a profit. Google in October reported that while Q3’09 average spam levels were down 8% from Q2’09, the overall number of spam bytes processed per user has grown.”]
Source: https://www.darkreading.com/attacks-breaches/-godfather-of-spam-gets-four-years-in-prison