Russians spam operations are among the biggest worldwide

Noticed a reduction in the amount of Viagra spam you've been getting? Well, police in Russia are taking the credit for the shutting down a web site called SpamIt.com which worked with a network of spam operations to promote fake versions of the erectile dysfunction medication Viagra.

Internet analysts say that the amount of Viagra spam sent out worldwide every day has fallen by twenty percent since the Russian spam operation was targeted. The police have put out an arrest warrant for Mr. Igor Gusev who they say headed the operation.  Among other things they want to talk to him about operating a pharmacy without a pharmaceutical licence and also for failing to register his business operation.

The police who raided Mr. Gusev's apartment in Moscow said that they had found to a number of hard drives and laptops as well as pharmaceutical products manufactured in India. The police said that the turnover of his business was in the region of hundreds of millions of pound and that he had made over £1 million himself. Mr. Gusev's lawyer said that he was in no way involved with the SpamIt web site and that he was abroad.

Russians spam operations are among the biggest worldwide and are said to be able to flourish quickly because of the huge amount of internal government corruption which means that regulation is poor. However this is a simplistic way of looking at it because the most amount of spam appears to come from the United States. The regulation of spam email and shutting down of illegal web sites is obviously extremely difficult.

According to the Spamhaus Project, America has almost 2,300 live spam issues.  China comes in second with 752 and Russia his third with less than 500.  Closer to home in the UK, Spamhaus report 293 live spam issues.

If you buy Viagra in response to an email you are pretty stupid. Not only will you almost certainly get a rubbish and potentially dangerous drug, but you also likely to have your credit card wiped out.