Spam King Leo Kuvayev Jailed on Child Sex Charges
Summary: Leonid "Leo" Aleksandorovich Kuvayev, 38, a dual Russian-American citizen ranked #2 on Spamhaus's worst-spammer list, was arrested in Moscow on Sept. 15, 2009, and indicted Aug. 3, 2009, on Russian child molestation charges alleging he molested more than 50 girls lured from a Moscow orphanage. Massachusetts had earlier convicted him of CAN-SPAM violations tied to his BadCow affiliate program and ordered him to pay $37 million, after which he fled to Russia; Spamhaus credits him as the first mass-spammer to send junk email as image files to evade text filters.
Why it matters: The spam operation outlived the man: sources say his former partner Vlad Khokholkov now runs the Mailien affiliate program, still soliciting spammers at 40-50 percent of each sale, on domains like ebaymeds.com and facebookmeds.com.
Read the original at Krebs on Security ↗
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