genius...

A half-dozen Gambino mobsters copped pleas yesterday to the biggest consumer fraud in U.S. history - preying on hapless porn Web site users and phone sex customers in a huge $650 million scam.
Martino and a business partner, Norman Chanes, devised the Internet and so-called "phone cramming" scams, which grossed sums that dwarfed the mob's traditional bread-and-butter rackets like gambling and loansharking.
Operating behind a maze of 64 companies, they lured suckers to X-rated Web sites promising "free tours" of the lurid content. The viewers were required to give their credit or debit card numbers as proof of age. Then the unwitting victims were hit with charges of up to $90 on their card.
The phone scam did not even require conning the consumer out of their card number. Martino and Chanes solicited dupes to call an 800 number for "free" samples of phone sex, horoscopes and phone dating.
Merely dialing the 800 number "trapped" the callers' phone numbers in a computer - and they got billed at least $40 a month for unwanted voice mail service.