Russian Officials Beginning to Prosecute ‘SpamIt’ Owner

Russian authorities, recently, put to force an unusual criminal prosecution in which 31-year old Igor Gusev is the alleged culprit for carrying out spam activities.

Claim the authorities, for his operation Igor hired spammers from different parts of the globe for SpamIt.com, his website that was lately taken offline. The spammers didn't distribute spam mails, instead they had to devise and play tricks so that unwitting Internet users could be made to open a web-link that clandestinely loaded malware onto their PCs.

Thereafter, the infected PCs did everything the spammers wished; they generated spam mails everyday and dispatched them to a number of users, with the host PCs included.

Of particular interest is that the Russian officials appear not to prosecute Igor for the spam messages he had been sending rather what the messages stated. Igor, it seems, was dispatching spam mails that presented pharmaceutical items at extremely subsidized rates and seemingly from a pharmaceutical firm in Canada.

Now, having executed this widespread illicit pharmaceutical trade, Igor is reported to have got USD 2 million in earnings that took the profits of the company to some USD 120 million since 2007. To his accomplices, Igor gave a 40% commission for each transaction they accomplished.

Speaking in defense of the suspected spammer, Vadim Kolosov, lawyer for Igor stated that he didn't own SpamIt.com as well as hadn't ever dispatch spam mail. Circleid.com published this on October 28, 2010.

According to Kolosov, Igor had nothing to do with the spam operations. Theregister.co.uk published this on October 28, 2010. The lawyer added that Igor indeed was planning for refuting the accusations.

Meanwhile, during the ongoing prosecution, Internet security specialists feel confused as to why, following a lengthy gap of ignoring spammers, Russian officials are reacting all of a sudden.

Possibly they're prosecuting Igor to prove that Russia is starting to bust malicious e-mail operators, who've maligned the country's Internet activity since many years, or may be to create opportunities for genuine high-profile companies to achieve a stronghold, alternatively to discount Western anxieties that Russia is a safe place from where cyber-criminals can act.

Related article: Russian Hackers Break into NOAA to Push Pills

» SPAMfighter News - 11/6/2010