A Russian hacker, holed up in an apartment, makes $5 million a day by faking ad views

Alexander Zhukov runs a company called Media Methane from an apartment in Bulgaria
On paper, it's a legitimate ad agency helping major clients like Nestlé, Comcast, and The New York Times run video ads
In reality, the ads never actually reached any real users
He built 6,000 fake websites that look exactly like ESPN, CNN, Vogue, Fox News
He rented 2,000 servers in Dallas and Amsterdam, bought 650k IP addresses, and even impersonated Verizon and Comcast users to make traffic look like ordinary Americans
He created a fake browser that automatically scrolls pages, clicks ads, moves the mouse, and can solve CAPTCHAs, performing almost indistinguishably from a real person
These bots generate 300 million video ad views daily
Advertisers pay $13 per thousand impressions
At his peak, he was earning $5 million a day lying in bed
Eventually, he got caught because he tore apart a client’s campaign, flooding their inventory and triggering all anti-fraud alerts from cybersecurity firms
The FBI arrested him in Bulgaria, extradited him to the U.S., and sentenced him to 10 years in federal prison
During his court appearance, he said: "I am just a powerless soldier, but across from me is a giant called the FBI."