Russia’s Anti-Spam Chief Faces Spamming Charges

A deputy of Duma's Hi-Tech Development Subcommittee of Russia "Ilya V. Ponomarev" has claimed that a leading businessman Pavel Vrublevsky has been operating spamming and online pharmacy activities on a global level while working as the Russian government's anti-spam advisor.

Ponomarev said that Vrublevsky is an important member of the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communication's anti-spam working group. He also informed that Russia's Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) had launched a criminal investigation into the businessman in 2007, just to dump the case when chief investigator left and allegedly started working for Vrublevsky.

As per an open letter to MVD, Vrublevsky was planning a scam (spam/scareware) and at the same time he was also being paid to avert it. Vrublevsky established a company called ChronoPay to process online payments. The company has several authentic businesses which includes lottery and airline tickets. Also, it deals with transactions on online pharmacy, adult as well as Internet gaming websites.

But, in 2009, journalist and security researcher Brian Krebs of The Washington Post was taken aback when he found a huge amount of payments from spam, scareware and malware, being made via ChronoPay, as per the news published by Daily Tech on May 19, 2010.

As per the recent charges from Ponomarev, who follows the Krebs' investigation, Vrublevsky has been living a dual life under the online name "Redeye". Further, Redeye developed Crutop.nu which is an adult website. The US Federal Trade Commission cautions that it is a breeding ground for spammers and a safe home for cybercriminals to share different methods and techniques with each other.

Ponomarev stated in a letter to A.V. Anichin, the deputy minister and chief of the Russian MVD Investigations Committee, that the key analysis of the activities of Vrublevsky indicates the level of the problem that has gained the attention of law-enforcement agencies.

Ponomarev said that there seems to be collaboration between a criminal gang and the government agency which is intolerable in any society, reported Daily Tech on May 19, 2010.

In the meantime, Vrublevsky asserted that he is innocent and has nothing to do with Crutop or Redeye. Also, he claimed that Ponomarev was paid to raise charges against him. Further, Russian officials claimed that they are thinking to set up a task force to look into the charges.

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» SPAMfighter News - 6/3/2010