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"Australian Porn Mafia" is a term used by many pornographers to refer to their "mates" in Brisbane, Queensland, who control a disproportionate amount of the planet's internet porn trade.

This phrase does not mean that Brisbane's porners have been convicted of belonging to an organized crime syndicate. In this instance, the use of the word "Mafia" refers to a group of businessmen in one locale who largely work separately.

Queensland's main porners (Dean Shannon, John "Johnson" Atheron, Greg Lasrado, Scott Phillips) no longer do much business together. But they live near each other, socialize with each other, and frequently imitate each other's business methods.

Shannon is the most affluent, respected, respectable and aloof Brisbane pornographer, according to his peers. During the year 2000, he shifted his attention primarily to mainstream ventures.

Lasrado and Phillips are also developing mainstream businessses.

Brisbane's porners are accused by their peers of massive spamming - transmitting millions of emails advertising pornography and bestiality to people, including children, who did not request such filth. The Aussies counter by saying that their spamming has been overstated, and that all adult internet operators do this. (See the AOL vs CEN suit.)

The other main accusation against the Aussie porners is that they frequently used stolen content. Most if not all of these issues were resolved with porn content providers in the year 2000.

Lasrado and Johnson are infamous for the amount of dollars they earn through internet bestiality sites.

7/28/00

FilthyCash.com

XXX Porn Insider tells L-ke: You could get into major trouble for publishing this. You could get shot. You don't realize who you're messing with. This is the Australian Mafia. You do things too quick sometimes. I don't know who's sending you this stuff... Honestly, these Australian guys are bad news. They don't play games.

These Aussies are making $3 million a month. That's worth hurting somebody over. You're not hard to identify. It'd be a better idea to leave this alone. These guys worry me. They're ruthless. Scott Phillips from PinkBits.com is over in the US all the time. All these guys made their money at the same time.

L-ke says: Steve Easton from APIC (a group that monitors copyright violation on the internet) wrote leading porn webmasters 7/27/00:

I recieved this anonymous email this morning. I have no idea who this is from or if it is fact. It certainly is convincing, and falls right into the pattern I always suspect it will.

Email: This letter concerns the rumored copyright infringements of this new Australian paysite company operating a webmaster program named Filthy Cash [owned by Greg Lasrado]. I was immediately suspect of this company the moment they reared their head. Soon I learned that the main people in this company were previously owners of a company called WTFRC, short for Who The f--- Really Cares. The biggest email spammers ever to hit the Adult Net.

[FTC links to WTFRC. Link1 Link 2]

I'm sure you are aware of the largest case of search engine spamming/hijacking investigated by the FTC, well the guilty party was identified as Carlos Perreira of Argentina I believe. It just happened to turn out that all those 100's of thousands of search engine listed pages Perreira stole all went to WFRC's sites, some of them beastiality sites. Well, WTFRC claimed that Perreira was just one of their advertisers whom they had no control over, they painted him as a 'rogue' advertiser. Ahahahahahahaa.......

WTFRC had no public webmaster program, they sought out people who could provide major traffic in private deals and bought traffic from other sleazeballs who steal amongst their Australian friends. As you've seen the past few weeks, scum stick up for each other, especially what i call the Australian Porn Mafia. Perreira took the fall for Greg Lazardos [Lasrado], I'm sure he was handsomely paid for it all. My guess is he was employed by WTFRC to hijack search engine listings. Anyways, Lazardos is now smugly showing people newspaper reports of his cooperation with the FTC and his proven innocence in the Perreira case. Bulls---.

The second I heard about FilthyCash i went to do a whois lookup for their domain. FilthyCash.com oddly was registered to somebody in Brooklyn, NY. I noticed an email address for the registrant, webmaster @zulu.org. it rang a bell I had to wait a long time till I figured out who why that name meant something to me. The webmaster at zulu.org is a moron named Mike Fruchtman. That domain was a major password site, Zulu came to the webmaster boards two years ago, either Ynot or Netpond, and began to brashly mock honest paysite webmasters, he and his password site pals mocked everybody, boasted how much money they were making from their illegal activities and that they did business on the sly with many of the major players.

One of those major players he was referring to was obviously Greg Lazardos [Lasrado] and WTFRC. I've been waiting to see how Zulu is connected to FilthyCash for the past couple of weeks. You've seen all the thieving webmasters come out from under their rocks lately with their ''I've known Greg for years and he's the most honest decent....blah blah bulls---". Well yesterday on Netpond's board some creton just wanted to thank 'all the wonderful people at FilthyCash including Greg, Melissa, commando, Zulu ' AHA! So not suprisingly it is apparent that the password mogul of yesterday is now a partner in FilthyCash.

Last week I saw Lazardo tell somebody that he had bought the domain name filthycash.com from a New York company as if the NY company had nothing to do with FC. Fruchtman aka Zulu has been the only owner of that domain since its creation. I hope you had gathered enough evidence against these thieves (once a thief always a thief) before they had a chance to start hiding and removing stolen property. I encourage you to take this bunch to the legal limit, they are loaded with money, dirty money. You really should request Netpond and Ynot to do a search of their archives going back 2 or 3 years for Zulu's posts proudly proclaiming his password site triumphs. Also, APIC needs to take more cases to court. There haven't been enough judgements to scare people off.

Hank writes: Remember though that Greg and WTFRC were absolved in the FTC case. I can only speculate how he set the relationship up with the page jacker and if the page jacker was paid or intimidated into silence where WTFRC was involved. It's obvious to me that WTFRC had full knowledge of this guy's activities and either recruited him to work for them or became the exclusive buyer of his dirty clicks. There's a chance the Australian webmasters will figure out who I am because I've clashed with them publically over FilthyCash's predecessor WTFRC before. I had just gotten fed up with the spam email coming from Australian web companies, most of it ending up at a WTFRC website.

L-ke says: I've heard from people who are fed up with the spam coming from Australian web companies, most of it supposedly ending up at a WTFRC website. IBILL got itself in Paul Vixie's Real Time BlackHole List [spam monitor] because they ignored spam complaints for years, according to a source. 100% of the Australian Porn Mafia use IBILL as a cc processor. If you go to Vixie's website and read the case against IBILL the clients listed with spam complaints were predominantly or all Australians. IBILL remember gets 15% of every 39.99 membership, interesting that most of the Australian paysite operators have the same hefty membership fee, that the millions of spammed emails produce.

XXX: Spam works. Scam outfits always gravitate towards IBILL, says a source. The email adresses on the offending websites for customer support and cancels went to email addresses not belonging to the website and in my experience were never answered. Now CCBill or Epoch would never let them get away with the bulls---. I laughed when I found out the woman [Melissa Davies] they hired to run their FilthyCash program turned out to be an IBILL employee.

That zulu.org was a large password site is 100% truth. Fruchtman's posts would be remembered by many. Sadly most webmasters only care when a dirty tactic affects them directly. If you do publish that one of the FilthyCash partners was a big password site operator my guess is Zulu won't deny it and then the usual maggots will come out and heap praise on the thief and minimize his sleazy past.

YYY: IBill always pays on time. They're a good company for getting paid. They're reliable good people. They can't control how their customers spam. All the other credit card processers have had problems getting payments out on time or holding back a huge reserve. That was the problem with Epoch. IBill pays on time. They're upfront and honest. If there's a problem, they let you know about it.

This RBL thing happens to a lot of people, including Joe Elkind with UU.net. You can't control your resellers and the spamming.

Scott Phillips from PinkBits has been known for a long time to be doing similar s---. A lot of people say, watch out for the Australians. They're scammers. They're slimy. They're shifty.

Phillips had a big run-in a couple of years ago with Steve Easton at APIC. Since then, they patched up their differences and now seem to work together.

Webmaster Brad Shaw writes: Oh yes, I remember ZULU well. He is the one who hacked my server and posted 1000's of passwords a couple years ago. Glad to see that he is doing well these days.

Greg Lasrado from FilthyCash.com writes on Netpond (which seems positively disposed to Lasrado and his operations): Guys I personally don't know L-ke Ford, so do not care to comment. Although all this s--- is getting a little old and lame. have'nt we been through this same stuff before. Lets talk about something that makes us money and not wastes our time. anyone got any constructive money makeing ideas that will help fellow webmaster's rather than try and play games with them. and Brad once again, we have all made mistakes. Why rub s--- in someones face when it is already dry. This seems to be your forte. Anyway netponders take care i have heaps of work to do.

modonnell@nine.com.au writes Steve Easton at APIC (admin@a-w.org): Hello Steve, I'm a producer at the Sunday program, Australia's Nine Network. I'm very interested in any material you may have on the Greg Lasrado business and the WTFRC scam, as well as the other Brisbane net porn entrepreneurs. Any ideas or contacts would be gratefully received. Thanks, Mick O'Donnell

L-ke says: I heard about a PI doing investigations into Mike Frutcher, for one Aussie porner was supposedly ripped off $18k by a company called fcetelcom.com. The PI has identified Mike Frutcher (lives in Brooklyn, New York) and will be soon tapping him on the shoulder and asking for the $18,000 back.

I hear that an English porner paid Frutcher $18,000 for traffic and never received anything out of it. If Frutcher does not cough up the $18,000, the PI will drop the files off to FBI. They will prosecute him for wire fraud.

XXX says: Prophet8 is a key part of the Netpond team and is good friends with the folks at Lasrado's FilthyCash.com. He used to work with PinkBits in Australia. Prophet8 took over at Netpond for Kaiser who went to Voice Media (Ron Levi). Eversince then, the Australian tough guys like Greg Lasrado has been posting. Greg used to partner with Scott from Pink Bits.

SShaw10@aol.com writes: My name is Steve and I work for a private investigation company that was retained by a client in England who was allegedly taken for $18,000 by a Mike Frutcher of zulu.org. We were surprised at the text of an article you wrote for Porn News which names "Mike Fruchtman" and zulu. We are trying to locate other individuals who may have been ripped off by Frutcher and I was wondering if you knew of anyone.

Here are some highlights from the 7/22/00 Daily Mail (Australian newspaper) about Greg Lasrado and his FilthyCash.com programs:

Police are called, computer sleuths engaged and a press conference duly held in Washington DC, where US government officials announce they have identified those responsible for this outrageous "Web-jacking." One is a Portugese computer hacker called Carlos Pereira; the other is Peraira's alleged employer, an Australian pornography company called WTFRC Ptl Ltd. In a civil complaint filed in the US District Court, the US Federal Trade Commission links the company to Gregory Lasrado, a 29-year old Queenslander.

...InsaneMedia did not exist a few months ago and, like the other 18 or so companies in which Lasrado holds shares or directorships, you won't find it in the phone book...

[In 1995, Lasrado]...teamed up with Scott Phillips, a 21-year-old martial arts enthusiast and aspiring Webmaster...

At a press conference on September 21, 1999, in Washington, the FTC's director of consumer protection, Jodie Bernstein, revealed that the scheme had been traced to an Australian company called WTFRC Pt Ltd, whose director and secretary was a Canberra man named Guiseppe Nirta...

7/30/00

Taksan writes: L-ke there is no Aussie Porn Mafia in my experience the figures being given for the General [Dean Shannon] and Scott's business is the sign of only one thing.. that these people have no idea what they are making and can only guess while they cast envious eyes at their operations.

You have about as much chance of. being "shot" by any of those guys as being considered for the editor in chiefs job by Larry Flynt.

Aussies are only a small % of the online (and offline) porn business yet we control a disproportionite amount of the traffic..why? Quite simply because most Aussies in the biz are honest and legitimate operators with sound business practices.

Unlike many Aussie net porners I never came into the porn business via the net I was in it long before the invention of the internet and yes I've seen many cowboys in the industry both on the net and offline businesses. But I would not say I've seen any more in Oz then in the US or even Europe. I'd say us Aussies (whereever in the world we may operate) have a very good reputation in the business.

XXX writes: Scott Phillips from PinkBits makes well over $4.5mil per month.

Steve Easton from APIC (a group that monitors copyright violation on the internet) writes: L-ke Ford,

Your website could be used as an asset to the Internet community, but you have chosen to infiltrate and invade people's privacy instead. How you obtain email messages that are not meant for you is something that should be intensely investigated.

The messages sent to me regarding FILTHYCASH and Greg Lasardo are anonymous, unproven and unfounded, and could very well be devious attempts to destroy their business. You have taken it upon yourself to not only provide means of further damage, but also to put my name on something I have no idea is even remotely true, which is further damaging to my reputation as well.

I think your concept is unique, but your methods are unsound and truly unprofessional. A journalist writes, a gossip is a fool.

Your interview with Serge Birbrair is excellent, especially because Serge is a master of understanding who is who and what is what on the web. Although accused at times of his own questionable behavior, even by me, I have the utmost respect for Serge and his accomplishments, as well as his willingness to advise. Perhaps you can learn something too from Serge's discretion?

As misleading and unpredictable as e-communications can be, your instant conclusions are more false than true, and it would take ions to apologize and retract your frivolous postings.

Should you choose to change your methods, feel free to contact me, however I am not interested in being lied to and underminded by you or anyone I communicate with, especially when I trust someone to speak openly and "off record" and then find it publicized. It appears your intentions are to be a pest.

Steve Easton

MikeAI writes on Netpond: I think all those wankers down under would sell their mothers down the river if they could make another 4 cents. Funny how they all stick together - and their apologist come out all the time ( many who are largest theives of all time) Guess we know why the British shipped them all there.... penal conlony and home of spammers and theives!

7/31/00

I've been publishing for several days about the Australian Porn Mafia, a group of powerful down under men who are widely regarded by many of their peers as highly unethical.

The two leaders of this supposed mafia are former partners, Scott Phillips of PinkBits and Greg Lasrado of Filthycash.com. Steve Easton of APIC (copyright enforcement agency) allegedly can't stand them.

Scott and Greg receive stern support from the Netpond chatroom. One of the principle owners of Netpond, Prophet8, is a former partner of Phillips.

According to my internet porn sources: Lasrado owns a bunch of offshore companies based in places like Hong Kong and Samoa. So when called on the carpet for copyright violation, Greg and his team will sometimes hem and haw and say, we own so many companies all around the world, we don't know where the documentation is.

XXX: What we have going here with Brooklyn resident Mike Frutcher of zulu.org and his connections to Lasrado is a crime syndicate who operate primarily in the porn world. They rip off porners, both producers and consumers, to attrack surfers to their sites (often filled with stolen content).

Scott is a friend and ex-business partner of Serge Birbrair, who's intervened with Phillips on behalf of people mad at Scott.

Serge says: "Yes, this is true. I never forget when I had to intervene on behalf of webmaster hurt by Scott. When we delivered him to the hospital, his penis was missing, nuts were squashed, left ancle was removed and so was right half of the brain. Thanks to the wonders of modern medecine the guy is fine now and runs a huge public Internet company.

Serge writes L-ke: " nope....I don't recall anything like it. I intervened once on behalf of... NiteLifer, you know him, ;-)) with Jeff aka KB. Come think of it, we might help clear misunderstanding once between Jeff and Scott also ;-))"

Phillips sets forth his view of things below.

According to my internet porn sources: Phillips of PinkBits is known for among other things, repeatedly and fraudulently billing people's credit cards. Say someone signs up for a month for one of Scott's sites. What will often happen is that they will find that they've been billed for two years of (bogus) approved membership.

According to my internet porn sources: Scott Phillips also made a habit of stealing content. Most of his content for his site Amateuravenue.com was stolen from Sunup Media Group. Scott will tell people complaining his theft. "I am my ISP's largest customer. They're not going to do a damn thing. We're down here in Asutralia. You can't touch us. So f--- off." And when you contact Scott's ISP, you get the runaround.

Scott replies: Sunup media doesnt think I stole content, why publish such garbage?

Jeff Miller from SunUp Media writes on Netpond: "I would just like to confirm that ScottPB and I did resolve our differences in August or September of 98. HOWEVER, part of the deal was supposed to have been the purchase of a beer by Scott, for me, at the orlando IA2000 show. I never got my beer, and as such, consider this matter to not yet be 100% resolved."

L-ke: Once you get inside the sites of Phillips and Lasrado, it is all leased content. There's rarely if ever any original content. The copyright infringement occurs on their free tours.

Scott Phillips replies: "Yo L-ke, this is complete rubbish I'm serious, we spend a fortune on content and yes, we had a dispute with Jeff which we resolved by admitting fault and buying every bit of content he had. He thought it was fair, and so did I. And this, is ridiculous... I have NOTHING TO DO IN BUSINESS WITH GREG LASRADO, his companies and mine are separate, nonrelated entities. We are simply friends."

L-ke: What is your connection to Filthycash.com?

Scott: "No connection whatsoever, direct or indirect. I am close friends with its owner, and it is an excellent program btw and very successful. I run http://www.adwealth.com and http://www.mostcash.com. We pay per click and per signup, filthycash pays recurrings. We don't regard each other as competitors."

L-ke: What is your connection to the WTFRC company?

Scott: "Nothing, it belongs to a guy called Joe Nirta. I had dinner with him a few times, but havent seen him in a few years now."

Scott writes on Netpond: L-ke, some of your facts are wrong.

1) I have nothing to do with the content stealing company wtfrc, which belongs to a scumbag called Joe Nirta

2) I've never been accused of double billing, despite using the same merchant account for five years. Call Sophie Kozaris, head of electronic payments at the National Australia Bank in Melbourne and ask her what she thinks of our business practices.

3) I've never recieved cease and desist letters over content, ever. Whenever we accidentally have used somebody elses pic we admit fault publically immediately and spend a truckload of money buying content off the wronged party. In early 1996 I stole content, when virutally everyone did. I had a dispute with Steve Easton, he convinced me that he was right and I was wrong, s I bought content from then on. Just after that I met Ron Levi for the first time and he made me realise that doing things the *right* way was the only way.

4) Jeff I owe you a beer :-)))) And despite all the s--- people starts about Australians, nobody wants to come out and say that we have ripped webmasters off. So where are all the webmasters Scott Phillips has ripped off since 1996?

L-ke: According to sources, Lasrado was involved in a big search engine scandal 18 months ago, hundreds of thousands of legitimate webpages were copied and resubmitted to search engines using porn links. So you'd type in for "child's playground" and you'd be sent to a porn site. Type in soccer and you'd go to porn. Lasrado was investigated by the FTC but some other guy took the fall for him.

I've heard Phillips and Lasrado called the most unethical people in the industry for their willfull copyright infringement and fraudulent billing practices. Lasrado's Filthycash.com operation has received cease and desist letters from numerous content providers including Color Climax in Amsterdam, Tom Sweets of Sweetpartners.com (Tom and Steve Sweets used to perform in front of the camera) and Jeff Miller from Sunup Media Group.

Lasrado's company WTFRC purchased a bunch of content from Adult Legal then they returned it all on their credit cards.

Lasrado's fiance is 21-year old Melissa Crosker (see gregandmelissa.com for details of their wedding). She is not Melissa Davies (Melissa@filthycash.com) who runs Lasrado's webmaster partnership program. She formerly worked with IBill, a credit card processing company that works extensively with Lasrado and other Aussie porners.

Melissa appeared last week on Webmasterlive.com. And she was asked about APIC's (copyright enforcement agency) concerns with Lasrado's operations. And Melissa skirted the issue. "I can't talk about it. We'll have a major announcement next week" which was baloney.

A check of FilthyCash.com's sites, particulary their free tours, shows that most of the content is stolen (from Sweetpartners.com, SunUp Media Group, Color Climax, Penthouse and elsewhere). For instance, go to www.taboobizarre.com and you'll find that most of the images on that front page are stolen from Sweetpartners (not including the photo of the girl and the donkey).

A check of Intergal's site, justwild.com, also reveals much of the same stolen content. [This was since resolved by a payment to Sweet Entertainment. The site justwild.com was outsourced by Intergal and when they discovered what happened, they resolved it.]

A few weeks ago, IBill stopped processing FilthyCash.com's sites because of copyright violation. Greg Lasrado then intervened with the violated content provider and made a deal.

Lasrado's operation typically reacts to cease and desist letters and the like with "f--- you. We're in Australia. You can't touch us." They feel that because they're in Australia, they're not touchable. Not true.

Porners who's copyrights have been infringed can contact APIC (which protects copyrights) who can then work with companies like IBill to cut off devious porners from credit card billing.

Backdoor Bruce writes: "Scott Phillips showed up on the doorstep of a friend of mines house at 2 am drunk and abused him over a dispute over clicks. Then again this guy did rip him off and steal substantial business from him so I carn't say I blame him.

"Greg moors his boat on the Gold Coast. One thing I know for sure is they are both richer then anyone in the Porn Video business. You know I would estimate some of the major Net porners (not saying which ones ..but a few) have a net worth of over US$100 million. Show me anyone in the Porn video biz who's made that much? You couldn't sell Vivid,VCA and Wicked for that much combined."

Jeff Miller operates the SunUpMedia Group, a mainly porn oriented company that does content, hosting and site design. Miller is partnered with Kevin Blatt's Sundown Media who's partnered with an Australian company.

Jeff writes on Netpond: "I really do not like to do this, but I figure I will give these guys one final chance, and I know they read this board so... Greg L., Mick, Melissa, anyone at filthycash.... I have sent 3 emails over the last week asking you to contact me in regards to your illegal use of my images. I suggest you do so. DO NOT make me shut you down to get this resolved. If you continue to ignore me, you will leave me no choice. PLEASE don't make me go that route, just answer the e-mail or ICQ me 394543 If I dont hear from you by tomorrow, I will have no choice."

Apicsucks.com writes on Netpond: "Relax there Jeffy! Contact Steve Sweet. He'll tell you that all stolen content on FilthyCash sites are just bureacratic mix-ups and oversights. Greg's a great guy mate. Don't accuse him of something you cannot prove you silly twit. And that goes for the lot of you! Greg paid for every image on his servers. Except for the stolen ones."

Jeff: "Oh, I am relaxed their APS...those that know me can tell you that I am always relaxed, except for those times that I am not. I am sure Greg is a great guy, it's never personal, I love Aussies, that's why I have a partner there, and an office there! If I wasn't relaxed we would have just shut him down at ibill until he responded..my post here is to give him the benefit of the doubt!"

Andy: "People are advised to steer clear of snail's archives, a huge site of porn pix. i tried to sign up using the 900 # registration and the bastard never gave me access or answered any emails asking for my account. so i disputed the charge with the phone company. snail's was a good site, but not answering 3-4 emails requesting your damn access account is uncool. so maybe this will shame them into action."

L-ke writes: Dear Scott Phillips, could we do a telephone interview?

Scott writes: Sure, if you give me some indication of what the accusations are. I'm basically semi-retired at this stage of my career, like the General I make more money being out of the limelight. Greg and I are best friends but no longer do any business together.

Greg got me started in business many years ago, he gave me a chance when nobody else would. We ran internet service providers and a chain of computer shops together, dabbled in property development and ram manufacture and other things until we started pinkbits, which was very successful.

We went our separate ways a few years ago, and Greg with my help started his own net porn business which is now more successful than mine. We are close friends and share ideas, but we never do business together, as we both enjoy having a friend with no hidden business agenda. Greg is the most talented businessman I have ever met, he fully deserves his success. I am semi-retired now, I train and teach kung fu an average of six hours a day and have very little interest in the adult web aside from the money.

I didn't read the article in the Age myself, but I was told about it.

Bruce: Ask about Kristen Holden. He ripped off everyone including Scotty and Andy from Sex Tracker.

Scott says: He is a slimy little weasel motherf---er spoilt mammas boy who balled his eyes out in my office crying like a baby when I confronted him with his theft. A short list of people he has ripped off include; John Johnson, John Johnson, Prophet_8, Cyrus, Greg Lasrado, Webfather and many others.

His father actually repaid me the 20 K he ripped us for, which Kristen used to fly first class to IA2000 and stay in the penthouse at the bellagio.

The little bastard couldn't lie straight in bed and better not come anywhere near me, ever.

My good friend and tough bastard John Johnson [brother of John Atheron] had the right way to deal with scum like this.

Blue Adept on Netpond: I *REALLY* must agree with the comments on Kristen Holden. That f--- ripped me off too! Add SplitInfinity to the list of people that Kristen Holden screwed.

Jeff Miller: Put me down for $5000 for the Holden ripoff pool! After getting ripped by him for the 5k, it convinced us to hire designers and bring them in house which has been very beneficial for us.

>Is it true that Australian internet porners, if not all Australians, tend to >be shifty, dishonest, sleazy, unethical and devious?

Scott: Not at all.

>If so, is this a result of the human stain of our convict heritage?

Scott: I think there is a strong anti-authoratarian tradition resulting from our convict days, most Australians simply do not like people telling them what to do. Australians like Americans telling us what to do even less.

Its not a bug, its a feature. Australian internet porners are among the world leaders, with unparralelled reputations for paying webmasters ON TIME and IN FULL, with unblemished reputations for integrity in an industry full of scammers.

We are very proud of our reputations for looking after webmasters (our customers) , who are all we really care about. For myself, this correlates to a complete lack of caring for what happens to the surfer. I live on the bottom of the world, I made my first five million dollars before I even met an American face to face, why should I care if I force a surfer (who we call a wanker) though an endless series of exit consoles and blind links? Our loyalty is to the webmasters who help us make our money, our commitment is to innovation to make more money off surfers so we can pay higher prices for clicks than our competitors.

And there isn't a person on the internet who can say Scott Phillips has ripped them off. Thats something I am very proud of, personally.

>What do you think of Steve Easton and APIC

Scott: I know Steve, I like him and I understand his position. He has a different paragidm to adult webmasters. L-ke, Steve doesn't hate me, I am a member of APIC/webposse and have helped him numerous times. Your info is wrong, he must be referring to Greg.

>Do you buy his denunciation of me that I published yesterday?

Scott: I havent read it yet, but I don't think I would agree with it, I like your style of jounalism.

>Do you think that L-keFord.com rivals The Times of London and the New York >Times for responsible journalism?

Scott: My penis is itchy, can you lick it please?

L-ke: Are you Jewish?

Scott: I'm half jewish on my fathers side, so no.

How I got into the industry is a long story I'm retired because I am rich and an extra few million wouldn't make the slightest difference My direction in life is to complete the system of kung fu I study, which I should do this year. After that I want to settle down to a quiet life of mastering my art and teaching my students. How very exiting ;-(

8/6/00

Shawn writes L-ke: Following are the major Brisbane players: John Johnson, Dean Shannon, Greg Lasrado, Scott Phillips, Don Reid, Mark Arandel.

As far as i know and i have a pretty good clue, Dean Shannon (General) is the largest by far, he runs webmaster programs like intergal etc [out of Pasadena, CA]. He is currently setting up a large company in brisbane with about 40 staff. They have many mainstream projects on the go.

John Johnson is the next largest with Scott Phillips, Jon is building a 8 Million dollar house in the same street that Greg Lazrado lives in. John is one of the largest spammers in the marketplace he runs a small office down in milton, but also uses servers out of shannon's operation.

Scott Phillips and Greg Lazrado are friends still i think and were partners until 18 months ago. Scott is a maniac, and basically a rougue. He has heaps of money and just hits whatever he is unhappy with. Greg lives a high profile life with lamborghini's and plenty of property, though his main business is not in porn. I have heard he does property developement. Both Lazrado and Shannon are going into commercial business now. Not together.

Don Reid is a small time operator, although started in the business first. He used to employ scott, greg and dean. Not sure of his sites but he used to have sindys.com or something like that. Mark Arandel is another small operator of which i dont know much about, i just know he did not want to employ me.

As far as this mafia thing goes, most of the guys in Brisbane don't really work together. Dean and John are very close, and i think Scott and Greg have fallen out. The other two are just guys who want to be all of the above.

8/8/00

Greg Lasrado's Filthycash.com operation has a terrible reputation among webmasters for using stolen content, spamming etc... Lasrado's often named as part of the Australian porn mafia. He's gotten a hiding on this site and other places over the past few weeks and is appearing to clean up his act. Sweet Entertainment Group recently got paid over $50,000 for content Lasrado's operation had stolen.

8/11/00

Nick@Ilynx (Johnathan Albert Allaby) owns Netpond.

Nick: "There is no such thing as the Australian Mafia."

L-ke: "Who is this Prophet8 guy?"

Nick: "Hang on..."

Prophet8: "Hey man, how are you doing?"

L-ke: "Were you a member of the Australian Porn Mafia?"

Nick: "There's no such thing."

XXX: "There is no such thing as the Australian Porn Mafia. That s--- came from a write up in the Brisbane Courier Mail newspaper. Phillips and Lasrado are just businessmen who might have dinner with each other a couple of times a year. They're not up to anything, they're just doing business. Prophet8 used to work for Scott Phillips years ago."

L-ke: "Prophet8, do you have respect for the way Phillips and Lasrado operate?"

Prophet8: "I'm not aware of the way they do their operation. I don't work with them or for them."

XXX: "The Australian guys [Phillips and Lasrado...] are friends of mine. I've seen lots of s--- posted. That article of yours is s---. They do honest business."

L-ke: "They seem unpopular with some of the content providers. Many of them, at least in the past, viewed Lasrado and Phillips as thieves."

XXX: "For God's sake, everybody is unpopular with somebody. I saw Greg Lasrado at last year's IA2000, walking around with his badge turned the wrong way around, buying content from every single CD provider. He had to go down to Circuit City and buy a 40-pack CD holder thing, because he couldn't carry around all the CDs [of content he honestly bought], in his suitcase.

"You're talking about guys who've made lots of money in a very competitive business. Trust me, they're going to piss somebody off. And it's a gutless of way of doing it. They come tell you stuff anonymously and you will publish it. Let's get religious here. That's not right."

YYY: "People are just pissed because Australia is a small country and a large proportion of the people making money on the adult web are in Australia. If FM and JoeE lived in Uruguay, folks would talk about the Uruguay Mafia. Scott Phillips has never harmed anybody. He buys content, he puts up a site and he buys traffic."

L-ke: "Thirty months ago, I used to send traffic to PinkBits. They paid me honestly and on time."

YYY: "Just because they're in Australia and not around on US business hours..."

XXX: "L-ke, you've written stories saying that JoeE is this and that, and then two weeks later, you say JoeE's a wonderful person. You've done the same with FM. Go to a webmaster's conference and throw a stick and you're either going to get somebody who loves FM or hates him. And it is the same with everybody. We're in a competitive business."

Nick: "I've dealt with the Aussies for three years and I have found them totally and unequivocably 100% above board in their business dealings."

L-ke: "It was only after all this stuff hit the boards and embarrassed Lasrado, that content providers like Sweet Entertainment got paid for content that had been stolen by Lasrado and co, say my sources."

Nick: "I don't know anything about that."

Prophet8: "I've worked for Phillips. He would not steal content because it is not in his business interest. He makes enough money to pay for content and not risk lawsuits from a guy he supposedly stole it off. It's not logical."

XXX: "In Las Vegas, I saw Scott Phillips, with his badge turned the other way, while he's licensing content..."

L-ke: "Why would he turn his badge the other way unless it's because he has a bad reputation?"

XXX: "If I turned my badge around, so that people could see it, I'd have every newbie and his brother bothering me."

YYY: "These Aussies are not American. They're not into swinging their big dick around. They're not thinking they're so cool because they're picture is on top of PCDataonline.com. They just do business. They don't need to run $200,000 parties to get business. They're not Americans. They're not interested in the American way of throwing around money. You should understand that. You're an Australian."

L-ke: "What about that webjacking stuff from 18 months ago? Lasrado owned those sites that did that. That webjacking seems heinous."

YYY: "The US government looked into it and cleared him. If he had any involvement in that at all, he would've had his head cut off."

L-ke: "I don't think they cleared him. They chose not to press charges because there aren't laws to deal with this."

8/31/00

I duked it out over the telephone this afternoon with Greg Lasrado, the putative head of the putatitive "Australian Porn Mafia" (which refers to a group of highly successful Australian porn internet entrepreneurs - Lasrado, Scott Phillips, John Johnson and co, none of whom have been proven to have links to organized crime).

Lasrado, like the rest of the Brisbane porners, comes across as the nicest, most low key guy. He speaks in an unassuming and gentle manner. Almost makes me feel bad for beating up on him so bad on my site.

My parents, sister and many relatives live in Brisbane. I spent three weeks there this Spring. And next time I'm there, Greg says he'll show me around his operation.

L-ke: "What are you doing these days with FilthyCash?"

Greg: "I'll be involved with it until I sell it or the new guys take it over. I had a couple of partners in the business [Yohan Lewis and Guy McKenzie] and we've gone our separate ways. I bought them out. I'll just maintain it. We have a lot of staff here. And leave it running for quite a while. But I've been focusing more on the mainstream."

L-ke: "Who is this Mike Zulu aka Commmando guy? Is he based in Brooklyn?"

Greg: "Yeah. Mike was part of the Filthy Cash group. He's a really good guy despite what people tend to say. He's a friend of mine that I met a long time ago. We partnered up on a few projects. We help each other out in various areas. He was from the password arena originally. He taught me a helluva lot about things in the adult market.

"That's how I got into it originally. I was with Scott Phillips ages ago... I just assisted with the financial end. I really did not know too much about being a webmaster."

L-ke: "What did you think of that Weekend Magazine article on you, entitled "The Great Internet Hijack.""

Greg: "It went across a few of the papers... The Courier Mail here in Brisbane released an article saying that the FTC and the ACCC are happy with the outcome [regarding the internet hijacking]... As I said in the beginning, I employed a [search engine] advertiser, he went and did a few things. From there we canned him. Obviously I've got to take the blame for taking all the traffic at the end of the day."

L-ke: "You must be embarrassed. If I hired someone who did that, I'd feel like hell."

Greg: "It was an embarrassing situation. As you know L-ke, if you stick your jaw out far enough, you're going to get it slapped every now and again.

"A lot of the things in the Weekend article were untrue, such as taking a drive in my Lambaghini. The gentleman [who wrote the article] did not even drive in it... I asked him to ask the FTC and the ACCC and he did not even do it while the Courier Mail guy, when I asked him to do the same thing, he got the story from them."

L-ke: "A lot of your peers believe that Carlos Pereira was paid to take the fall for you."

Greg: "No, not at all. Carlos Pereira wasn't paid to take a fall. He was simply an advertiser and he came to me and said he was very good with search engines. We employed him to do that. I never met him personally. I talked to him on the phone. I could hardly understand two words that he had to say. He doesn't speak much English. But he seems to type perfect English. He seems like a nice enough guy. He just went a bit crazy with the search engine stuff and the rest if history."

L-ke: "Where did the term 'Australian Porn Mafia' come from?"

Greg: "I don't know, to tell you the truth. If you've met the Australian guys personally, they're just normal guys, like the rest of the guys in this business."

L-ke: "Where did the term come from?"

Greg: "There was something years ago that mentioned the 'Pink Mafia'... But there is no such thing as the Australian Porn Mafia. And if there is, it is not the webmasters you think it is. The guys in Brisbane are just a bunch of blokes, just normal fellows leading normal lives, and everything is pretty straight up aside from the porn thing."

L-ke: "Is your main company Insane Media?"

Greg: "That's a mainstream business. I generate traffic and sell it locally. It is the beginning of me building a large portal in Australia. It's going to be an informative portal that helps the Kids First Foundation. Go to KidsFirst.com.au. I have a lot of reporters ringing me up asking for stories. So now I ask them to pay a fee to get the interview and the funds go to KidsFirst. And when they have their charity auctions, I say, what you don't sell, I'll take on. It's a way of giving something back."

L-ke: "How much have you donated to Kids First?"

Greg: "Probably about $20,000. Another $100,000 will go to them shortly. There's a company that has exclusive rights to our wedding here. GregandMelissa.com. It will be one of the bigger weddings around. If they take up the offer, they'll pay about $100,000 for the coverage. I don't know why they want to do it, but they probably want to do it because it will be held [September 23rd] at the new Palazzo Versace hotel here [Gold Coast]. It will be the first wedding there.

"I bought one of Brisbane's premier blocks that overlooks the city and the river. I'm having a party there this weekend. I have a fulltime builder on it. I have the plans for my new house right here.

"It hasn't been postponed at all. It just takes a long time here to get things through the City Council. The plans have gone in..."

L-ke: "What is your relationship with Serge Birbrair?"

Greg: "I met Serge years ago. I've never bought any traffic off him. I've kept in touch with him from time to time. He seems like a nice enough guy. Because I've had no dealings with him, I can't comment on his business."

L-ke: "Do you own a lot of offshore companies?"

Greg: "I've had offshore companies."

L-ke: "I hear that you own companies around the world, based out places like Hong Kong."

Greg: "We process through certain areas, obviously through IBill. They'll pay to one company and then that company will pay the expenses in Australia. I pay my taxes here."

L-ke: "What is your primary business?"

Greg: "My primary business is not my most profitable. It is just developing conventional stuff on the internet. I'm doing a deal with a media station here to build a portal to take on another portal here.

"Insane Media develops casino portals. We're going to wait for the Australian moratorium to lift and then put our application in for an Australian casino license. I've been buying lots of casino domains. At the moment, we're just generating the traffic and selling it to the other webmasters who are running casinos."

L-ke: "You're 30 years old. How did you get so rich so quickly?"

Greg: "I've been in the industry for a while. I come from a wealthy family. My father assisted me in certain areas. I wouldn't say that Melissa [Crosker, Greg's bride to be] are very wealthy, but we live ok. I just enjoy life.

"I take part in the boards now and again. A lot of the stuff on the webmaster boards can be taken out of context."

L-ke: "I talked to some content guys in the adult industry who complained that your company stole content."

Greg: "That would not have come from our company. I have some copyright issues at the moment. One's with Brad Shaw. Dave from PureHardcore used to own that company. I purchased the content off Dave. I just dealt with it today because someone told me that Brad Shaw was posting on the Netpond boards. The other one is for copyright infringement with SunUp Media. That will be sorted out by the end of today. I've been exchanging email with Jeff Miller. And the one with Sweet Entertainment, I bought content for one company but I did not buy a license to run it across multiple sites. So I paid about $60,000 to sort out that issue."

L-ke: "Thanks for your time."

Greg: "Yeah... The whole thing about the Australian Porn Mafia is getting ridiculous. I don't believe there is such a thing.

"Scotty Phillips is a really nice guy if you sit down and talk with him. He can go off the handle a little bit but he's a great guy."

L-ke: "John Johnson has a reputation as a big spammer."

Greg: "He lives just around the corner from me... A big spammer? Yeah. I think everyone in Australia spams, myself included. We've always done it. You'll start seeing that the mailings I'm doing now are a bit different. We now have a huge opt-in list. But I've toned it all down. I'm just maintaining the data base. I'm happy with the income coming in. I'm mostly focused on doing new things. Once I get married, I'll be getting out of the adult side of the industry."

L-ke: "Have you ever operated bestiality sites?"

Greg: "We've been accused of that quite a lot. I did a joint venture with a guy a long time ago. Yeah, I was involved in it. I'll admit it. And then got out of it. But on that side of it, that's what Yohan [Lewis] and Guy [McKenzie] used to control and run and everything like that. And I think they've [the bestiality sites] have all been shut down.

"I'm not going to lie to you, L-ke. I was involved in it. It made some money for us at the time. A few years back, we used to do anything to make a quid out of this industry. But now, more and more, it's about maintaining the data base and getting more longevity out of the clients themselves, so you don't have to work as hard. And to tell you the truth, I've had enough of the [adult] industry.

"I read your board [L-keFord.com] from time to time. Every now and again you take the piss out of me. It doesn't make any difference. That's the name of the game. I don't take offense unless people make accusations that are completely untrue. And there is a lot of that going on right now.

"If you talk to a lot of the webmasters, we're pretty straight up. There's never been anyone who has not been paid. And we only started running commercial programs this year. FilthyCash.com has not been around long. Until then we just did individual deals with webmasters.

"Next time you're in Brisbane, feel free to drop over. You can learn more about what I do. I think you'll get a totally different reality of what we're really like. We don't operate the same as a lot of the Americans do. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised at how simply it really is. I'll look forward to seeing you one day."

L-ke: "I will look forward to seeing you in Brisbane. Thanks mate."

9/24/00

I talked Sunday by telephone with Commando, aka Mike Fruchtman, a 24-year old key partner in Greg Lasrado's FilthyCash.com operation.

Mike: "I couldn't go to IA 2000. I had too many projects.

"I'm in Brooklyn, New York. Part of the Australian porn mafia. (laugh). I'm a New Yorker born and bred. I've been to Brisbane [Australia] several times. I go every few months to see Greg and the guys."

L-ke: "How did you start in the porn biz?"

Mike: "About four years ago, I used to run a password site [a website that posted passwords to adult pay sites]. I started out on the underground of the net, basically hacking and the free information stuff, credit card generators and all that stuff... I ran a password site for a few months and made a s---load of money off of it... Then I got into the other side [running paysites].

"When I ran a password site, I had all these sponsors like Intergal [owned by Brisbane resident Dean Shannon], CEN [owned by Joe Elkind] and a few others who emailed me for banner slots. So I was always wondering, why are they going to pay me to send them traffic? Then I realized that I am really the fool because these guys are making money. They're paying me a grand a month and I'm sending these guys 20, 30, 40 joins a day.

"So I hooked up with Greg three years ago and we started up some paysites. And we've been running paysites together eversince.... TeenSexUSA.com. Allpee.com...

"Guy [Lewis] and Yohan [McKenzie] are no longer a part of Greg's operation. [They're former business partners.] Greg bought them out but we're still looking for them. They're thieves. They stole a lot of money. What they're doing now is going after our advertisers, making up rumors about us and trying to steal our traffic.

"It's been a bitter battle. We gave them a chance to walk away with it clean. They turned around and decided to be cocksuckers, stealing our hosting, our webmasters... They probably stole over one million dollars. They are very shady people. They are very slimy scuzzballs."

L-ke: "Have you run bestiality sites?"

Mike: "We have in the past. Basically, Guy and Yohan were the guys who ran it and took control of it. I think as Greg was telling you, back in the day, we would basically do anything to make a buck. We ran bestiality sites, pissing sites, stuff like that. We had some affiliation. I think Guy and Yohan still run the sites. I play no role in it and I don't think that Greg does either anymore."

L-ke: "What's your connections with Netpond?"

Mike: "I don't have any connection with Netpond. I've met Prophet8, Scott Phillips. I don't really know Nick [owner] and the Netpond guys. I know that it is not controlled by the Australians or by Scott PB [PinkBits] or anything.

"I like Scott Phillips. I have no problem with him. The image that he has in the industry as a bad boy, as a scammer... When he first came out four years ago, he was tricky to play hardball with. But he's a good guy. He's got a good reputation. He pays on time. I stand behind Scott."

L-ke: "A few months ago, some British company went after you for $18,000."

Mike: "Yeah, that was an attempt at extortion. It [the charges] were totally unfounded and totally untrue."

L-ke: "They say that you took $18,000 to send traffic and then did not send them any traffic."

Mike: "Not true. I have actually have proof, paperwork here saying that none of it is true. It came down to an attempt to extort money from me, which didn't happen."

L-ke: "Did they ever pay you $18,000?"

Mike: "Nope. No money exchanged hands whatsoever. A company in London was looking for me. He claimed that he'd sent me $18,000. There's no bank record, there's no proof, there's nothing. Basically, this guy hired investigators and hired people to come after me in Brooklyn. When I found out about it, I got the Brooklyn District Attorney's office on them and they disappeared."

L-ke: "What's new with you?"

Mike: "Greg and I are getting ready to drop a bomb. We're going to catch everybody by surprise with the new stuff we have coming out. Increased payouts, better looking paysites, more ways for webmasters to make money."

L-ke: "Your reputation with some people in the industry is really bad, because you used to be a password trader."

Mike: "Yeah, that's mainly why. I've never stolen from anybody. I've never cheated anybody. There was a rumor coming out from Brad Shaw that I hacked his server and stole passwords. That's totally untrue. He's talking about all the password guys that he's currently suing. I shutdown my password site in late 1997."

L-ke: "How long was it up?"

Mike: "Maybe eight months. At its heydey, it was doing 35-40,000 hits a day. This is three years ago when there were only three or four password sites around. Now if you go to a passwords site, they're all really commercialized. All the links are not really passwords, they're all really bought from paysites. That's how I ran it... I never hacked people's servers. Most of the passwords we got were from people who were pissed off. People who'd joined paysites and couldn't cancel. They'd email their passwords. We'd get about 30-40 emails a day...

"Most of the passwords we got were just copied from another [passwords] site. That's how all these passwords sites work. There's a script that runs that automatically gets passwords and every other site copies it. But there's really no hacking done. There's nothing illegal about it."

L-ke: "Have you ever run into problems with the police or DAs?"

Mike: "No. In the eight months that I had my site running, I probably got one letter, maybe two letters, from a paysite saying take our passwords down. I've never had any legal trouble."

L-ke: "You say that today most passwords sites are commercially run."

Mike: "All of them are."

L-ke: "So they don't really offer legitimate passwords?"

Mike: "You'd find a handful of working passwords but the majority of them are sponsor links. Passwords guys have gotten smart. Now they build their own scam sites. Or their own fake member sites. They buy a domain name. They password protect it and they put a password on a password site. Once that gets listed, all the other password sites will copy that domain name, so within a day or two they will have 30-40,000 hits flowing to that domain name... They'll put up banners and exit consoles and redirect the traffic to their sponsor. I know all the password guys out there and they make serious money. Phil from XXXpassword.com does about $20,000 a month. Chris Adler who runs Passwordcorp from New Zealand, he's up there to. I buy banner spots on password sites and I pay $10-$15,000 a month."

L-ke: "How did you hook up with Lasrado?"

Mike: "A few years ago, after he left PinkBits and started up his new company WTFRC [Who The f--- Really Cares]. He approached me to buy some banner spots. He was referred by Dean from Intergal. I used to do a lot of dealings with Dean.

"So I sold Greg some banner slots. We became good friends. We started talking. I flew down to Beverly Hills and met him. Then I flew to Brisbane and we started up some paysites. I took all my resources and all the people I know, because I have a lot of connections. I know a lot of traffic people. And I poured them into Greg.

"At first we had six sites going and three employees working. Now it is 50 plus sites and more than 25 people working for the company."

L-ke: "What did Greg bring to the table?"

Mike: "He brought the resources [money]. He did the back end stuff and I did the front end stuff. We clicked. We made a lot of money and became very good friends.

"I worked as a chef for five years before I got into computers. But there's no money in cooking.

"Brad Shaw is the only guy on Netpond I have a problem with. Brad Shaw is just a f---ing asshole. He has a problem with me that goes back three years. If you were reading YNOT and Netpond three years ago, he came on the boards to say how much he hated password sites. When I was the first site he bought password traffic from. He sent me a check for $1500 then two days later came on the boards saying how much he hated password sites. And that this guy Zulu is an asshole.

"Greg [Lasrado] is one of the nicest, most sincere guys you'd ever meet. He'd do anything for anybody. He'd bend over backwards for anybody. He flies people down to Australia every few weeks just for the helluva it. Just to do traffic deals. All the s--- I hear about Greg is totally untrue. When people actually meet him, they see it. Greg is a great guy. He's never stolen from anybody. He's never f---ed anybody over. He's paid webmasters for three years. I can vouch for that because I've seen it.

"Your whole "Australian Porn Mafia" thing is great. It's funny. Either people are scared of us or they don't know what to think... I find it a laugh."

...............................

Melissa Davies, Melissa@billinguru.com, writes on Netpond 9/27/00: Valued Colleagues- After winging it to Texas to talk to my Dad's doctor about the last two months of his life (he has cancer and isn't expected to live much more then a couple of months). I must announce I am no longer associated with the Australian Porn Mafia or any of its entities - Cybergroups, Filthycash.com, Adultdollar.com, SharedEarnings.com, InsaneMedia, or TheTrafficCompany.com......

I feel compelled to make this public announcement in the hope that I may keep my clean reputation. All payout, traffic, etc questions should be directed to al@insanemedia.com or greg@filthycash.com.

Don't cry for Argentina, this morning I have just accepted a permanent position with a respectable honest, and caring family values type of company, so I can be close to my dad in final days.

I would like to thank all the people that have stood by me in the last month with all the stuff going on with my dad, etc. CJ, Kezza, Sneef, LisaC, Bob Cox, Mistress Vivienne, Stalin (where is that baby?), Commando, KimmyKim, the Lustpuppy Boys.

Greg and Al- Money comes and goes, but you of all people should know the people you love are more important……

1/23/01

Dominic writes: Nice story in the Bulletin magazine (January 23, 2001) What gets me is that you [Greg Lasrado?] named the other three major players in Brisbane. Don't you get it you stupid f---. People like the: - Australian Tax Office - Queensland Government - Australian Broadcasting Authority - Fred Niles (Religious Crusader) - and many other nasty bastards would all want to take people in the Porn industry down.

As far as I know, you are leading a one man mission to f--- up porn for everyone in Brisbane. The only reason I can see you trying to do this, is to make sure you and your friends are the only big dicks standing. If you can scare off the other Brisbane guys because they have families etc, you win. You are truly one of the most cruel and vindictive bastards I have ever come across I would post some of the junk you said to the Bulletin reporter, but it would probably only serve your cause.

And shame on you L-ke for letting a fellow journalist smear the reputations of other Brisbane operators. You know full well that Shadow [Lasrado] is the reason for people in Brisbane getting a bad name. The other Brisbane operators all keep quiet and do their deals just like any other web master in the world. Sometimes they get close to the line, but they don't crash through the line like Shadow does.

Shadow - pull you head in. You and your new CEO keep telling everyone your not in porn anymore. So f--- off. And to Shadows new CEO. You once asked me not to pursue Shadow, because of the collateral damage I could cause you and the other staff within your group. Try reading the Bulletin article, and guess what damage your boss is doing to others - including YOU!

Here are some excerpts from the January 23rd, 2001 issue of the Bulletin:

Greg Lasrado, of Adults.com...along with fellow members of the alleged porn mafia such as (all Brisbane-based) Scott Phillips, Dean Shannon and John Johnson, would between them control the lion's shareof Australia's internet porn revenue.

One of Lasrados' specialties - and his company does consultancy work for everyone from sex operators to mainstream commercial groups - is in "traffic": i.e. getting people to visit sites via advertising and exit links.

Take on-line gambling, from the Lasrados theory of marketing. "If you are already on a [pay] porn site, you already have your credit card in your hand - that makes it pretty easy to get traffic through to gaming sites," he says.

For a bloke who started out in a shop selling personal computers, and now talks of his luxury cars, Gold Coast property and the like, it ain't bad. Lasrados moved from PCs to become an internet service provider (ISP). "I quickly realised that about 85% of my traffic was going through to porn sites," he says. "I flew to Sydney and went and bought every sex magazine I could find and scanned the images."

...Lasrados also vigorously denies borrowing content from other sites.

Greg Lasrado Settles With The FTC

2/13/01

From FTC.gov:

Australian defendant, Gregory Lasrado, has agreed to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that a scheme that hijacked unwitting Internet surfers violated the FTC Act. Lasrado participated in a scam that copied existing Web sites and inserted coded instructions in the copycat sites which automatically redirected consumers to adult sites operated by the defendants. Then the scammers disabled the browser's "back" and "exit" commands so that Internet surfers trying to escape the pornographic images faced screen after screen of similar material and advertisements for other adult sites. The FTC obtained a permanent injunction from the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia and a court order to permanently purge this scam from the Internet in default judgments against two defendants, WTFRC Pty Ltd. and Guiseppe Nirta. A third defendant, Carlos Pereira, has evaded law enforcement authorities in Portugal. The Stipulated Final Judgment and Order announced today will bar the illegal practices and resolve the case against Lasrado.

"This case illustrates the importance of cross-border cooperation between consumer protection agencies, especially as we patrol the 'Net," said Jodie Bernstein, Director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection. "The Australian Competition & Consumer Commission and the Portuguese Instituto do Consumidor rendered invaluable assistance in the investigation and resolution of the case. Working together, we've kicked this scam off the net and let the scammers know they can't snub the law."

In September 1999, the FTC filed a complaint in U. S. District Court seeking to halt the scheme. According to the FTC complaint, in a practice called "pagejacking," the defendants made exact copies of Web pages posted by unrelated parties, including the imbedded text that informs search engines about the subject matter of the site. Then they made one change that was hidden from view: they inserted a command to "redirect" any surfer coming to the site to another Web site that contained sexually-explicit, adult-oriented material. Internet surfers searching for subjects as innocuous as "Oklahoma tornadoes" or "child car seats" would type those terms into a search engine and the search results would list a variety of related sites, including the bogus, copycat site of the defendants. Surfers assumed from the listings that the defendants' sites contained the information they were seeking and clicked on the listing. The "redirect" command imbedded in the copycat site immediately rerouted the consumer to an adult site hosted by the defendants. Once there, consumers were victimized by another scam. The defendants "mouse trapped" consumers by incapacitating their Internet browser's "back" and "close" buttons, so that while they were trying to exit the defendants' site, they were sent to additional adult sites in an unavoidable, seemingly endless loop.

The settlement announced today bars Lasrado from posing as another Web site; from inserting any type of code that redirects consumers to any Web page or Web site he owns, operates or is affiliated with; and from misrepresenting the contents of his Web pages through the use of meta tags or other means. The settlement also will bar him from "mousetrapping," and from providing false contact information in connection with domain name registration. The settlement also will bar Lasrado from failing to clearly and conspicuously disclose material terms and conditions in connection with the advertising, promotion, offering for sale, sale or provision of any goods or services on the Internet. He would be required to disclose the name or names of his business, the geographic address and e-mail or telephone contact numbers. The settlement contains certain record keeping provisions to allow the Commission to monitor compliance.

Read the full decision here.

XXX writes: Doesn't this clear Lasrado's name? You must feel pretty stupid L-ke Ford after all the nasty things you've published about the man.

L-ke replies: Yes, it seems to end Greg's deal with the FTC. And Greg Lasrado has not been found legally guilty in a court of law. You say it clears Greg's name. I respectfully disagree. Not being found guilty in a court does not clear one's name. It simply means that you are not legally guilty. But an impartial observer reading the FTC decision would conclude that Greg is morally guilty of benefitting from page jacking. Greg made a ton of money off an illegal and immoral activity. If the situation was reversed and I was in Greg's place, I'd be deeply ashamed.

3/21/01

I hear a war is breaking out between key members of the Australian Porn Mafia.

Greg Lasrado writes: "what war is going on. no one has involved me yet if there is one."

The conflict revolves around a little known Australian pornographer by the name of Daniel Hicks. Dan worked for Dean Shannon until they split.

XXX says: "Hicks's wife did Dean's conveyancing [bookkeeping]. Dean employed Daniel as his CEO for Dean's non adult businesses. Then Dean and Dan had a tiff and parted company. Dan was employed to do Dean's non-adult business but Dan become more interested in the adult side and went out on his own as a pornographer.

"Dean's got little business interest in porn anymore. Shannon split a few months ago with his partner Rick Ramage and wound down their databases. Dean's Intergal is now run by Shane and Murray. They pay Dean royalties.

"Shannon's taking off with his non-adult ventures. He has a pay-per-click search engine called Pageseeker.com. Pay-per-click is an emerging market in mainstream, after proving its worth in the porn world. Dean's developing products called "Unreal Sports" such as "Unreal Racing."

"Toast.com was Dean's original vehicle for his non-adult offerings but Toast is a registered trademark in the US. So he's going with Dark Blue Sea, as the name for operation. He's raised money in the private equity market and will probably go public on the Australian stock exchange in July or August.

"The downturn in the Nasdaq has not much affected Shannon because his plans are all profit and business focused, not pie in the sky schemes."

Hicks started his own operation with a great email list (which probably belonged to Shannon). Daniel walked into the offices of various members of the infamous Aussie Porn Mafia and everybody mailed to the list. But Daniel never gave them the remove list, so when the Aussie porners mailed to the list, they brought down all kinds of heat on themselves. It even got leading porn credit card processor IBill shut down for a few days by Paul Vixie's Realtime Black Hole List which monitors spammers.

Scott Phillips writes: "Daniel is a self styled Brisbane net porn god, who strangely has not made one dollar out of the industry. His one claim to fame is stealing playgals mailing list after he was fired (he incorrectly told me he was a part owner) and attempting to sell it to all and sundry. As far as I can tell the only thing he is good at is launching vexatious legal actions. Oh yeah, hes is a raving flaming, lisp speaking homosexual, with all the homo baggage that goes along with that."

Hicks borrowed some bucks from Lasrado and they had a falling out.

Daniel feels he's been screwed by everybody and the screwing was neither emotionally nor spiritually satisfying.

Dan now says there's a war going on between the rival families of the Aussie Porn Mafia and he's right in the middle of it.

Yohan Lewish and Guy McKenzie, former key associates of the Greg Lasrado porn family, launched their own syndicate this year.

I hear they received a huge settlement from Lasrado that nobody's allowed to talk about.

Over the past two weeks, Lewis and McKenzie toured the United States, paying respectful calls to our men of honor.

Guy and Yohan met with content provider Jeff Miller in Southern California and set up credit card processing accounts with IBill in Florida.

I hear that Lasrado's internet porn operation is down to $600,000 a month from its peak of over $3,000,000 a month.

Lasrado's about to launch a new project under a different name.

Guy was supposed to marry in March so he may now be on his honeymoon.

XXX says: Lasrado still commands much loyalty in the industry but his staff is not happy with him. Greg hired some players. Greg has a new woman. His ex-fiance Melissa Crosker has moved out on her own, and has an apartment in Brisbane.

When Al Hunt from IBill was originally brought on by Lasrado, the deal was that Greg was no longer going to be part of the day to day operations of his porn empire.

Hunt came back to the United States for six weeks to get a divorce. When Al returned to Brisbane, Greg, with his finger back in the day to day porn operation, sent Hunt to the Gold Coast and the Barrier Reef to go diving for a few weeks. When Hunt came back, he discovered that he was no longer running the show. Greg was running the show.

This produced feelings of anxiety, insecurity and lack of self worth on the part of Hunt who will probably break with Lasrado shortly.

Greg Lasrado tells L-ke: "Al Hunt never ran my porn side he always looked after the mainstream things as he does now. Casino traffic etc."

Mike Blow, who also came from IBill in Florida to Lasrado in Brisbane, has already returned to the United States because of his feelings of emotional disappointment and professional letdown with Lasrado.

I tell you, every eight months Lasrado likes to turn his operation upside down. He likes to fire his partners, restructures everything and launches new programs. And we're at the eight month mark now.

Two of Lasrado's top players, his marketing guy and his search engine guy, have left.

What's going on with Greg Lasrado and his casino ventures? I believe he drives traffic to casino sites. I thought he was going to put up his own casino site.

Adult traffic doesn't convert with casino sites so I don't know where Lasrado's getting his casino traffic.

Greg's mate Scott Phillips operates several casino sites.

The average casino player costs $250 in advertising to attract to your site. Then he'll average $275 a month while staying an average of six to eight months.

L-ke emailed Greg Lasrado about the mysterious Daniel Hicks, the man at the eye of the hurricane.

Lasrado replies: "not too much really. from what i know of him he is a nice enough guy. we have had our arguements but all in all he is ok. why. and no he didnt borrow a lot of money from me.

"Nothing has really changed..... I was wondering why you are asking me all these questions. Lately i have done nothing but the same old s--- day in day out. The only thing i have been doing differently is spend less time on this bloody computer."

3/27/01

Billy writes: Mr Ford: I have just found out some interesting news on the oz guys. A new group consisting of Guy Mckenzie Yohan Lewis and Chris Madden all of Brisbane, Australia have started a new group of sites. They consist of www.dirtydollar.com, nothing new here, www.eroticwealth.com, again nothing new, and www.taboocash.com, ALL BESTIALITY

These guys used to be partners with Greg Lasrado and have now gone on their own after ripping him off (so i heard from a third party). Although no one really knows the truth about Greg I think. There is always something different. I always ask myself the question if he is so bad along with Scott Phillips and Dean Shannon why have they been around so long.

These new guys on the block are running through Ibill under an alias Shane Murphy who does not exist.

Please expose these beastiality cunts for what they are. I hope for once you take these pricks down. i will keep in contact regarding this as i have a personal issue here. I invested some money with guy Mckenzie Yohan Lewis and Chris Madden and have not been given what i paid for so i am willing to give you any info you need on them. Please look into their sites especially the taboocash.com sites and report correctly on them. It is time these guys stopped making easy money.

4/11/01

XXX (various porn industry sources) says: "Greg Lasrado got "heavied" by some boozers in the fruit markets. And Greg withstood it by hiring guys. Greg and company are not standard business people. But they don't even get along with each other. They don't operate as a collusive entity.

"Greg presents the most normal image of any of them.

"Scott Phillips talks like Rob Black and Rob Spallone. He does not sound like someone who made it on the back page of the Financial Review business section.

"Around August, 2000, Lasrado walked in and fired three of his partners, including Yohan Lewis and Guy McKenzie. He laid off about 12 people. He shut down the offices. He said he only wanted a small staff so that he could move away from adult and into the commercial market.

"Guy and Yohan ran the adult show while Greg stayed up at his house doing the non-adult stuff. Who knows why Greg got rid of them? Things weren't going the way Greg wanted and he wanted to stir up chaos. It was a mutual thing. I don't think they were surprised that it happened.

"Guy's getting ready to get married and Yohan's moved to the coast.

"About every eight months, Greg tries to reinvent himself. So by late March, Greg should have a new name for his companies. Greg still owns FilthyCash with Mike Zulu. Greg also owns The Traffic Company which largely deals in internet traffic deals, both porn and mainstream. Al Hunt is the CEO. Mike Loew also helps run the show. Mike served as fraud director for IBill. He had access to all of IBill's end user's credit card numbers.

"I remember they once got hit for copyright violations on their bestiality content and their servers got shut down. And their accounts got attached. They did over a million dollars in deals with spammers who took them for every penny.

"We're talking about famous spammers. You pay them to do totally illegal spamming. Remember the AOL incident that got IBill shut down? Somebody had hacked into the AOL database and stolen all the user names and then spammed to it all.

"They also lost their spam solution. Then they have their IBill end user list that they stole. Which they were stupid enough to give to several other people before they got their solution up and running. And they never got to mail to it once. And it has been mailed to to death.

"Spam Solution. You have to have an ISP that will let you send out mass amounts of email without getting caught. In Australia, it is easier because you can still hit a small ma-and-pop ISP in Australia and get away with it. There aren't many small ISPs in the United States. Here in the US, there are spam police who monitor that stuff 24/7. They don't have that in Australia. Spam monitoring is an 8-5 job. And you don't work on the weekends. Telstra (Australia's telephone company) hasn't caught on yet. So the Aussie porners can still get away with spamming.

"The hardest part for spammers is that you have to have somebody who will host your pages (where you send the spam traffic) and keep them up as long as you possibly can. And that's where they ran into problems. You need to have that usually in the United States. And that's hard to find now. Now the Real Time Blackhole List (RBL) runs 24/7 and effectively catches mass spammers."

L-ke: "Do you think Lasrado and company might be part of an international crime ring?"

XXX: "No. Lasrado's had his run-ins with the Triads. I don't know if he turned States Evidence. For a while he had 24 hour bodyguards. And the police ended up busting somebody. The Triads were trying to blackmail Lasrado for millions of dollars. I think has resolved. I'm sure that Greg made the mistake of borrowing money from the Triads.

"Scott Phillips is very successful. Scott conquered the IBill/RBL issues. I would never send any traffic to him. I would never work for him.On a business level, Scott is ruthless. On a personal level, Scott's a nice guy.

"Scott Phillips and Greg Lasrado started PinkBits. They wanted to stay friends. So Scott bought out Greg. And Scott has done phenomenal ever since.

"Scott went out and learned from the masters. He met up with Serge and learned from him. And Scott learned from Fantasy Man. He learned from the best.

"And Scott hires great programmers. Scott has a dual degree in law and accounting. He uses several different credit card processors.

"Dean Shannon has always been the class act of the group. The professional one who does things the right way. He's always been the one to test the limits. A while ago, Dean spammed. But now, with so much heat being caused by it, I don't think so. Dean's not even involved in the porn business anymore. He has his own non-adult ventures. He's got a couple of IPOs running. Other people run his porn businesses.

"Dean is the godfather of Brisbane internet porn. Scott worked for Dean until going out on his own and hooking up with Greg. They're all friends and they all live near each other but Dean doesn't do business with any of them. They talk on the phone...

"Scott and Greg do no business together because they want to stay friends."

L-ke: "Does Lasrado's operation steal content?"

XXX: "He always pays for it when he gets caught. He will often buy one or two site licenses, not 250 site licenses. And because of the constant turmoil that goes on in his business life. The constant change of business partners. I'm sure it was fraud at one point.

"Greg is a master manipulator. He enjoys manipulating. That is the game for him. He loves to play the ends against the middle. Greg's whole idea of management is to keep people in competition. Instead of working together as a team, he's going to pit them against each other to see who produces the best results, figuring that they will both produce good results from the competition. He does take care of his people eventually.

"Is Greg a pathological liar or a sadist? I don't know. He likes to stir up trouble. He thinks his life isn't complete unless it is in total chaos."

L-ke: "How come these Aussies all process with IBill?"

XXX: "In 1997, Tim from IBill went down under to meet with Dean Shannon. IBill was willing to work with them and make it happen. It was about loyalty. IBill has always been there for them and made sure that whatever was needed was taken care of. The Aussies are a good chunk of IBill's business."

L-ke: "Did Lasrados operation fraudulently bill people's credit cards?"

XXX: "No way. They've never had the database to do that. Greg has been the only one who never collected credit card numbers."

Dreaded Australian Porn Mafia Threatens To Take L-ke To Court

6/18/01

From Glenn.Vassallo@deacons.com.au

Dear Mr Ford

We act for Mr Guy McKenzie and Mr Yohan Lewis, who have instructed us to respond to the email that you forwarded to them on 15 June 2001.

Our clients appreciate the fact that you have seen fit to seek their views on the contents of the article before publishing it to a wider audience. Our clients are unable to comment at any length on the contents of the article as they signed an agreement with [Greg] Lasrado, following the resolution of their dispute with him, which prevents them from revealing the terms of the settlement to anyone. Lasrado is similarly bound not to reveal the contents of the settlement.

Notwithstanding the above, the statements apparently made by Lasrado as reported in your email are untrue and highly defamatory of our clients. In the circumstances, if you publish the article, with the defamatory statements included, to a wider audience, you too will be guilty of defamation and our clients will be entitled to damages from you directly. Further, our clients will, if necessary, seek the assistance of the court to prevent the publication of the article in order to protect their good names and reputations.

In the circumstances, and to avoid unnecessary litigation, please immediately provide us with your written assurance that you will not publish the recent dialogue between yourself and Lasrado, at the very least, to the extent that it relates to Lasrado's dispute with our clients and his comments on the nature of our clients' business and business associates.

In the event that we do not receive your assurances as requested above within the next 24 hours we will assume that they are not forthcoming and that it is your intention to publish the article to a wider audience. In those circumstances, we will, on our clients' instructions, which are already to hand, make application to the court for an injunction preventing the publication of the article. Our clients will also seek the costs of those proceedings.

Yours faithfully
Glenn Vassallo
Solicitor Deacons Lawyers
18 June 2001

L-ke Ford responds:

G'day, mate:

Prior restraint of speech is frowned on here in the states, mate.

No worries, mate.

Your mate,
L-ke Ford.

P.S. They don't make the litigators wear the silly outfits here either, mate.