Accused ‘Spam King’ Arrested

A Seattle man described as one of the world’s top spammers was arrested yesterday.

Robert Alan Soloway faces charges of mail and wire fraud, aggravated identity theft, and money laundering, according to Associated Press. His company is accused of taking over “zombie” computers to send millions of spam e-mails and defrauding customers who hired him to send e-mail to people willing to receive spam, Seattle Times reports.

Interim U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Sullivan of the Western District of Washington says investigators have dubbed Soloway a “spam king.”

Sullivan says the case against Soloway is the first in the country to use identity theft statutes to prosecute an alleged spammer for taking over an Internet domain name.