As much as spam emails totally suck when they make their way to your inbox - especially ones like these - I can honestly say I was completely shocked when I read this story on USA Today.

A man from Colorado has been arrested for sending hundreds of thousands of spam e-mails. His sentence? Twenty-one months in prison plus having to pay nearly $715,000 to the Internal Revenue Service.

I've met the odd "professional spammer" in my day, and they seriously look like your average Joe that basically gets paid for sending mass emails for various companies. . . usually without even knowing or caring about what the email is about. What's different about this case is the serial spammer was creating emails to deceive stock investors and he actually achieved this. During his spamming stint, he ended up raking in over $3.5 million. Nuf said.

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