U.S. Internet 'Spam King' arrested

[Al-khiyal]

SAN FRANCISCO, May 31, 2007 -- US prosecutors said that they captured Wednesday a nefarious Internet marketer responsible for so much junk e-mail that they called him "Spam King."

Robert Soloway, 27, was arrested in Seattle, Washington, a week after being indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of identity theft, money laundering, and mail, wire, and e-mail fraud.

"Spam is a scourge of the Internet, and Robert Soloway is one of its most prolific practitioners," said US Attorney for the Western District of Washington Jeffrey Sullivan. "Our investigators dubbed him the 'Spam King' because he is responsible for millions of spam e-mails."

Between November of 2003 and May of 2007 Soloway "spammed" tens of millions of e-mail messages to promote Web sites at which his company, Newport Internet Marketing, sold products and services, according to prosecutors.

Soloway routinely moved his Web site to different Internet addresses to dodge detection and began registering them through Chinese Internet service providers in 2006 in an apparent ploy to mask his involvement.

Spam messages sent by Soloway used misleading "header" information to dupe people into opening them, according to Sullivan.

Soloway is accused of using "botnets," networks of computers, to disguise where e-mail originated and of forging return addresses of real people or businesses that wound up blamed for unwanted mailings.

If convicted as charged, Soloway will face a maximum sentence of more than 65 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.

Prosecutors want to seize approximately $773,000 that they say Soloway made from his spamming-related activities.

U.S. Internet 'Spam King' arrested

[Al-khiyal]

June 2, 2007 -- Junk e-mail continued to land in mailboxes around the world yesterday, despite the arrest a day earlier of a man described as one of the world's most prolific spammers.

Robert Alan Soloway, 27, was arrested on Thursday on charges of mail fraud, wire fraud, email fraud, aggravated identity theft and money laundering.

Prosecutors say Mr Soloway has sent millions of junk emails since 2003, even though Microsoft won a $7 million judgment against him in 2005 and an internet service provider in Oklahoma won a $10 million judgment.

He could face decades in prison.

But even if Mr Soloway is convicted and his operations shut down, spam experts say dozens are in line to fill the void.

"In the short term, the effect it's going to have is more symbolic more than anything else,"John Levine, co-author of Fighting Spam for Dummies, said .

Mr Soloway was once on a top 10 list of spammers kept by The Spamhaus Project, an international anti-spam organisation.

Others, mostly in Russia and other countries out of reach of US or European law, have topped him.

But he remains on a Spamhaus list of about 135 spammers deemed responsible for as much as 80 per cent of all junk e-mail.

World spam king finally caught in police net

[Cheba_Mami]

I am glad the bad guy got what he deserved.