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

So who will win the PR war

[peragrin]

New York's Attoreny General

or

Massachusetts attorney general?

Both are making huge names for themselves by fighting the fights no one else wants to touch.

Re:So who will win the PR war

[vandon]

This really isn't going to do anything. Spam sites get shut down all the time and spammers have other servers lined up to move to at a moments notice. They're probably back up and operating at a new site already.

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.

Good

[DeepCerulean]

It's nice to see some spammers getting sued rather than some 12 year old girl who downloads MP3s...

Go after the root cause

[kjfitz]

This is nice but as long as there is money to made sending spam there will be plenty of border-line companies jumping into the gap to replace others taken down. This isn't going to end until we go after the companies selling their products through the spammers.

How does spam STILL work??

[alecks]

I am still baffeld at how and why SPAM still works?!?! Everyone i know complains about spam, even the most non-technical people... Yet, apparently, some of them still go and buy stuff...

I'd be very curious to see some figures on how much money was spent on spam-started purchases last year....

Gang... :)

[mreed911]

"Internet Spam Gang"

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! What's their hand sign? Do they go around flashing their USB drive covers to each other to represent their set? Do they have license plates with their IP subnets? Yeah, boyee!

Re:They have been shutdown pending the outcome...

[no haters]

Good Lord, who crapped in your cheerios this morning? A couple notes to your tirade:

1) Counterfeit versions of prescription drugs != drugs from Canada; that should be fairly obvious.

2) Clicking on a link that says it will take you to one thing, then takes you to another is most certainly doing something "unwittingly". Whether or not that person is a nitwit is irrelevant.

3) I would absolutely classify shutting down a spam gangs ring of websites as "bringing the hammer down". They are no longer operational, and are in court. The only thing left to do is to convict them and make them pay monetary damages.

Sheesh, mellow out, you should be happy you might actually start getting less spam.