Brothers Plead Guilty To Distributing Spam

Osmaan Ahmad Shah, 26, and Amir Ahmad Shah, 29 the two brothers from Missouri (US) along with their firm admitted in court that they carried out a spam campaign across the country, which preyed upon over 2,000 universities and colleges.

Stated US Attorney Beth Phillips in-charge of the Western District of Missouri, the accused had pleaded to participating in a nation-wide spam against colleges and universities. Kansas City Info Zine published this on July 29, 2010.

Phillips further said that as per a plea agreement, the defendants agreed that they would surrender more than $439,000 worth of property and cash they acquired from their illicit operations. He added that illicit spam schemes caused considerable difficulties for computer systems therefore people who spammed unsolicited e-mails for gaining profits would be answerable.

Reportedly, during the first interrogation of the Shahs in April 2009, prosecutors alleged that as a result of the conspiracy, mass undesirable e-mails were dispatched to various American university and college students. Specifically, the defendants pleaded guilty on July 28, 2010 to a single scam between December 2004 and February 2005 that promised digital cameras.

They further confessed that they employed malware for harvesting over 8m e-mail IDs of students studying in the University of Missouri as well as numerous other universities and colleges in the U.S.

To help Osmaan and Amir in this venture, Wayne, New Jersey-based Paul Zucker provided them with proxy IDs along with the malware which dispatched the junk e-mails. Zucker confessed his crime on July 13, 2010. Riverfront Times reported this on July 29, 2010.

Meanwhile, in a spamming vocation that started in January 2004 and ended in April 2009 with arrests, the Shahs' involvement fetched them over $4m while receiving sponsorship from their firm i2o. Worryingly, this implies that revenues can after all be earned through the penis-enhancement e-mails the brothers distributed.

And while a verdict is awaited, the Shahs could be sentenced to a long 8-year period inside federal jail and Zucker to a 5-year. Already the Shahs will be forfeiting $78,980, a $344,250 worth properties in Columbia and St. Louis, and many online domain names.

Related article: Brothers Legally Punished for Executing Spam Campaign

» SPAMfighter News - 8/10/2010