An Attorney General harboring political ambitions, sordid global plots to infect computers and dupe American consumers, staccato Russian names like Kuvayev, Khokholkov and Tkcachev… a spy(ware) thriller perhaps - or maybe a new Boston-New York rivalry. Massachusetts Attorney General Tom Reilly filed a civil suit yesterday accusing "mastermind" Leo Kuvayev of violating state and federal consumer protection laws, the Boston Globe reports. The AG accused Kuvayev and six other of running one of the world's most prolific network of spammers, who he said have sent hundreds of millions of unsolicited email messages.
A Massachusetts judge issued an emergency order to shut down dozens of the websites as state investigators working with Microsoft worked against the Boston-based spam ring. Reilly last year became the first state AG to bring charges under the Can-Spam Act.
The Mass. AG accused the Boston-based spammers of luring consumers into buying pirated software, knockoffs of designer watches, pornography, and counterfeit drugs claimed to be Viagra, Celebrex, Vioxx, Cialis, and Zoloft.
