About a month ago, I shared my theory that all of the world’s ails relate, in some cases directly, to the state of Florida (where I was born and raised). After the Elian Gonzalez controversy, the 2000 election debacle, the original anthrax letters, the flying lessons for the 9/11 terrorists, and the Terri Schiavo matter, it’s only natural to wonder how the state became such a blight on the nation.
But as Michael Froomkin noted yesterday, it gets worse. You know all that awful spam that keeps creeping into your email inbox? Guess where it comes from.
No place does spamming and scamming quite like South Florida.
Together, Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties are home to more spammers than any country on Earth. And it’s not just the annoying pitches for mortgages and sex pills. Increasingly, law enforcement officials are finding that junk e-mail is a favored weapon of predators, an easy way for criminals to target a world of potential victims from behind a wall of anonymity.
More than a quarter of about 180 hardcore spammers tracked by watchdog group Spamhaus are based in Florida, and most of those are in the tri-county area. The city with the most spammers in the world is Boca Raton. Eleven are listed by Spamhaus as based there, though anti-spam groups say they think that figure misses dozens who send spam at least part-time.
Why South Florida? Spammers and anti-spam groups cite a combination of reasons. They include the warm weather and laid-back lifestyle, lenient bankruptcy laws, proximity to Internet data centers, a history of telemarketing and e-mail marketing, and the state’s longstanding image as a good place to do dirty business.
South Florida is so notorious that some experts attributed a short-term decline in global spam after last year’s hurricanes to the assumption that the storms disrupted spammers’ operations.
And the FBI’s North Miami office receives so many fraud complaints that only major cases get the bureau’s attention. “If you come in with a $1 million case, we’ll put you in line with all the others,” said LeVord Burns, supervisory special agent.
Is anyone surprised by this?