Update submitted by W.J. Elvin, September 10, 2009: Another criminal prankster nailed…
Update submitted by W.J. Elvin III, August 27, 2009: Evil prankster arrested…
Editor’s Note: At ArtofthePrank.com, we post prank news from around the world. This news varies from the profound to the profane to the pathetic. Readers are encouraged to make their own judgement calls. This story submitted by W.J. Elvin III, as seen on The Smoking Gun, is profoundly disturbing. It’s surprising the people responsible for these pranks are not incarcerated or dead. I have my own criteria about what makes a meaningful prank. This seems like a good place to inject an article I penned a while back for the magazine Extra!, published by FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting) called The Art of the Con. Joey Skaggs
Telephone Terrorist: Outing An Online Outlaw, August 4, 2009
A TSG investigation unmasks the leader of Pranknet and the miscreants behind a year-long wave of phone call criminality
At 4:15 AM on a recent Tuesday, on a quiet, darkened street in Windsor, Ontario, a man was wrapping up another long day tormenting and terrorizing strangers on the telephone. Working from a sparsely furnished two-bedroom apartment in a ramshackle building a block from the Detroit River, the man, nicknamed “Dex”, heads a network of so-called pranksters who have spent more than a year engaged in an orgy of criminal activity–vandalism, threats, harassment, impersonation, hacking, and other assorted felonies and misdemeanors–targeting U.S. businesses and residents.
Coalescing in an online chat room, members of the group, known as Pranknet, use the telephone to carry out cruel and outrageous hoaxes, which they broadcast live around-the-clock on the Internet. Masquerading as hotel employees, emergency service workers, and representatives of fire alarm companies, “Dex” and his cohorts have successfully prodded unwitting victims to destroy hotel rooms and lobbies, set off sprinkler systems, activate fire alarms, and damage assorted fast food restaurants. Continue reading “PrankNET Pranksters: Telephone Terrorists”