‘Top 10 Spammer’ Indicted for Wire Fraud

Michael A. Persaud, a California man profiled in a Nov. 2014 KrebsOnSecurity story about a junk email purveyor tagged as one of the World’s Top 10 Worst Spammers, was indicted this week on federal wire fraud charges tied to an alleged spamming operation.

 

According to an indictment returned in federal court in Chicago, Persaud used multiple Internet addresses and domains – a technique known as “snowshoe spamming” – to transmit spam emails over at least nine networks.

 

The Justice Department says Persaud sent well over a million spam emails to recipients in the United States and abroad. Prosecutors charge that Persaud often used false names to register the domains, and he created fraudulent “From:” address fields to conceal that he was the true sender of the emails. The government also accuses Persaud of “illegally transferring and selling millions of email addresses for the purpose of transmitting spam.”

 

Persaud is currently listed as #8 on the World’s 10 Worst Spammers list maintained by Spamhaus, an anti-spam organization. In 1998, Persaud was sued by AOL, which charged that he committed fraud by using various names to send millions of get-rich-quick spam messages to America Online customers. Persaud did not contest the charges and was ordered to pay more than a half-million dollars in restitution and damages.

 

 

View article…