Junk e-mail has become a major aggravation for many Internet users. The unwanted electronic pitches for pornography and get-rich schemes are clogging peoples' e-mail inboxes.
What makes junk e-mail or "spam" especially annoying is that the senders are usually unidentifiable, shadowy businesses that are nearly impossible to track down.
But as NHPR correspondent Brian McWilliams found, sometimes the source of a junk email message is a company right around the corner.
[tape of tournament sounds: "Welcome to the 53rd annual New Hampshire Open …"]
At the New Hampshire Open chess tournament at the Radisson Hotel in Merrimack recently, some 80 contestants convened from all over New England.
Most of them have heard of Braden Bournival.
Ask tournament organizer Bob Messenger to tick off the names of the best Granite State chess players in the tournament.
He puts the 19-year-old Bournival near the top of the list.
"I would say … the defending champion is Joe Fang …the other ones would be Hal Terrie, Brad Bournival, and Kevin Cotreau."
But ask what he knows about Bournival's company, Amazing Internet Products, and Messenger has no comment.
"I can talk about the tournament. I just won't talk about him …"
Fact is, Bournival’s reputation in chess is a lot more palatable than his reputation in business. He’s one of the world's biggest purveyors of junk e-mail that advertises penis enlargement pills.
[fade out tournament audio]
Each week, his company Amazing Internet Products in Manchester is responsible for blasting hundreds of thousands of unsolicited emails, or spam, to Internet users all over the world.
The e-mails tout a product called Pinacle, which costs 50 bucks a bottle. The messages guarantee several inches of success.
Many people don't appreciate receiving this offer.
Faith York is a rehabilitation counselor in Peaks Island, Maine.
She says her 10-year-old son got an email last week advertising Pinacle pills. The message included a link to a website for ordering the pills.
"He said, `Why would anybody send me something like this?' He was very bothered by it. So I went and looked at it and was appalled that they would be sending something like this to a 10-year-old. Especially something of this nature." [:13]
York says the e-mail and the web site included no way to contact Amazing Internet Products.
Bournival uses several means to conceal his identity. The names behind his emails and web sites are often fictitious.
But Bournival made a few mistakes. He gave his real home address when he registered Amazing Internet Products as a limited liability corporation with the State of New Hampshire last February.
The street address is the same one he used when he registered the web site for the New Hampshire Chess Association.
To throw people off its tracks, Amazing Internet sometimes sends out a load of junk email using the real return address of an innocent third party.
That's what happened to Gerry Noblot of Sneads Ferry, North Carolina.
He says Amazing Internet has been forging his company's e-mail return address in its Pinacle spams since last January.
And he's taking all the heat.
"People that aren't familiar with the Internet, when they get those messages, they think I sent it. A lot of people don't understand. This is not me, people."
If you’re wondering why anyone would want to cause such annoyance, the answer is simple – money.
An obscure web page left on Bournival’s site provides an unusual glimpse into the size of his enterprise. It shows orders for his penis enlargement pills totaling nearly a half a million dollars. In a single month.
A former associate says Bournival privately boasts of earning a 6-figure income from the business.
When contacted by NHPR, Bournival refused to be interviewed and warned his friends not to answer any questions either.
He told them to say he works for McDonalds.
Surreptitious E-commerce is a curious profession for a 19 year old chess master. But in an odd way, there might be a connection between the business and the game.
Based on web site registrations and interviews with a former Bournival associate, Bournival has been under the tutelage of a Rhode Island man named Davis Wolfgang Hawke.
Hawke is another chess champion who has been in the junk e-mail business since 1999.
Hawke has his own interesting history.
He was the founder and leader of neo-Nazi group called the Knights of Freedom.
For years, Hawke has been closely watched by the Southern Poverty Law Center, an organization in Alabama that tracks hate groups.
The Center's Mark Potok says he's not surprised Hawke has been mentoring bright young chess players in this line of work.
"I think he's basically a petty criminal. He's like a little gang leader, a cultist. Forming groups in which he's the Fuhrer. And I think that's probably the case here." [:15]
In all of this, Bournival is doing nothing obviously illegal. A handful of states have passed laws against sending junk email with forged return addresses.
But New Hampshire has no spam law.
And there's no federal law regulating junk email either.
[back to sound of tournament]
When the final round of the 53rd New Hampshire Open Chess tournament concluded last month, Brad Bournival finished a disappointing 18th overall and 8th among New Hampshire competitors
But in recent months, Bournival has clearly earned the dubious distinction of being among the state's leading junk e-mailers.
For NHPR News, I'm Brian McWilliams.
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