Massachusetts Drops Hammer on Spam Gang

karvind writes "According to story on BBC and Yahoo, the Massachusetts attorney general has filed a lawsuit against one of the world's biggest spam gangs. An emergency court order granted under the suit should see the network of websites the spammers ran shut down. Attorney General Thomas Reilly's civil complaint against alleged ringleader Leo Kuvayev and six other people associated with 2K Services Ltd. and Ecash Pay Ltd. Offered for sale on the websites were pornography, pills, pirated software and fake fancy watches."

Comments

Related info

[Virtual Karma]

The "Internet Spam Gang," as investigators called the group, is considered to be one of the world's largest spam operations and has sent millions of unsolicited e-mail messages for items like pirated software and counterfeit drugs. The gang is comprised of seven individuals and allegedly headed by Leo Kuvayev, who lives in Newton, a Boston suburb.

As reported by www.cio-today.com

Re:Related info

[Reliant-1864]

The home in Mas. is his mother's address. In 2001, when I knew Leo, he had an apartment and an office in Montreal, Canada. His main partner at the time had already been deported to Russia. The guy will do anything for money, including.

That partner dealt heavily in trafficking of Child Pornography, and while I was working at 2k Services, even considered doing it through the office (I didn't find out about that until after I'd quit).

He also runs online casinos with his own software that's got quite a record on Casino Meister

His partner runs top100.org (including all the other domains on the same software) which is where a lot of child pornography gets trafficked.

I used to work for Leo Kuvayev at 2k Services/ECash Services. I am grateful I quit years ago to move onto better jobs. I hope he and his partners end up behind bars. They have no ethics.

Re:Related info

[Sentry21]

Some more related info, for those who are interested.

I used to work for Leo, but I got out before things went from bad to worse. Other coworkers and friends, as well as my roommate, weren't so lucky.

Aside from the flash designers that he was paying under the table and the animal pornography and child pornography that he's gotten into distributing (the story didn't mention that though, I guess it's unrelated), he was just a really shady character. He was good friends with Alan Ralsky (who, at one point, both had and used my roommate's cellphone number several times), and he was all for doing whatever he could to make money. Truly, to those who believe in the capitalist ideal, he was an icon for all.

Leo is a Russia-born American citizen; the address in Mass. is his mother's address, but Leo has relocated to Russia (the article says he might be, but I can confirm this). Aside from the big screw-ups that the article mentions, he's also done such wonderful things as trying to dock people's pay so their salaries match other employees, and he fired me because the secretary, with whom he was having an affair, told him that I'd said I was going to quit (which I didn't).

I don't feel so bad now that I 'worked' for him for a few months, fudged my hours upwards by around 50-70%, and then went on vacation after I'd made a few grand off of him. Oh well.

Re:How does spam STILL work??

[TomTraynor]

The economics of it makes it worth their while. It costs very little to send out millions of messages. All they need is a few suckers to buy their product and they have already profited. For the software it does not cost much to buy CDs (I can buy them for about 35 cents/CD0 and the cost of the mailing. If they go via FTP for software delivery the cost is still lower.

The spammers are playing on either ignorance or greed and it works.

To get it to stop may well be impossible, but, we can do our bit to make the spammers life difficult. I do my part by having a homepage that friends and family can access to read about the latest scams/spams and I always try to educate people about why they should buy from legit local businesses.

Re:So who will win the PR war

[vandon]

Yes, but with this precedent, expect the sites to be shutdown just as fast as warez sites.

Not that *I* use those those types of sites, but I know of a few sites that have been up and running for quite a while.

Re:So who will win the PR war

[Anonymous Coward]

Use "then" as an adverb, noun or adjective to reference time or something that follows in time. The word you meant to you was "than" which is a conjunction between phrases being compared.

Examples:
John's computer has more RAM than Gina's.
OK, then I'll use John's computer.
First put the CD in then hold the C key to boot from the CD.
Booting from a CD is faster than booting to a floppy.

Re:So who will win the PR war

[frankie]

No speculation in New York, it's a done deal

http://www.spitzer2006.com/

Re:I know people who buy things from Spam

[doublem]

Well, the woman in question was an Asshole. Since name is not Allison, Asshole works nicely. I just hit the dash key a few times. Didn't count out any letters.