US man arrested for Tsunami spam fraud

A US man has been arrested for allegedly sending around 800,000 spam emails which attempted to scam money from individuals who believed them to be genuine fundraising messages supporting the Tsunami appeal.

Matthew Schmieder from Pittsburgh was arrested by the FBI yesterday after UK anti-spam operation Spamhaus tracked him down and alerted the authorities.

Tracing and arresting spammers can be a laborious and frustrating process, but Steve Linford from Spamhaus attributed the rapid turnaround in this instance to the ease with which they could track Schmieder - a rank amateur in spam terms who made little attempt to cover his tracks or obscure his location and identity.

Linford said: "He had very little in place by way of defences and upon first seeing the emails we were able to very quickly track him down to Pittsburgh. He lived right around the corner from the FBI offices there and they were able to leave the office and pick up him right away."