ROKSO Spammer Robert Soloway Arrested

On May 30, 2007 Robert Alan Soloway, one of the most persistent professional spammers, was indicted by a grand jury in Seattle, Washington, on charges that include fraud, money laundering, and identity theft. The indictment followed a years-long joint investigation by the Washington State Attorney General's Office, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the Internal Revenue Service Department of Criminal Investigations (IRS-CI), and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service (USPIS).

Soloway has been a long term nuisance on the internet. He has been sending enormous amounts of spam for years, filling mailboxes and mail servers with unsolicited and unwanted junk email. In addition, he has fraudulently marketed his spam services to others as legitimate 'opt-in' services when they were anything but that, duping innocent users and then failing to provide promised customer support or refunds. Because Soloway spammed through hijacked computers and open proxies, he has repeatedly violated both the Computer Abuse and Fraud Act of 1984 and the CAN-SPAM law of 2003.

Soloway first appeared in the Spamhaus Block List (SBL) in 2001. In 2003, he was listed on Spamhaus's Register of Known Spam Operations (ROKSO), a list of the world's "worst of the worst" criminal spammers. Spamhaus spamtraps continued to receive spam solicitations from Soloway advertising his services through the weekend before today's indictment.

Soloway's violations of the U.S. CAN-SPAM law and various state anti-spam laws resulted in his being sued successfully by a number of plaintiffs, including Microsoft Corporation and Robert Braver, owner of an Oklahoma-based ISP. Both Microsoft and Braver received damage awards of millions of dollars. Soloway never paid these awards, claiming that he lived off of the proceeds of a family trust and was therefore "judgement-proof." In September 2005 in Oklahoma City, after Soloway had fired his lawyers and then failed to appear to represent himself in court, U.S. District Judge Ralph G. Thompson issued a permanent injunction against Soloway, forbidding him to continue sending spam that violated the CAN-SPAM act. Soloway ignored this injunction as well and continued to spam.

Today, Soloway was arrested and brought before the U.S. District Court in Seattle, Washington, where he was indicted on multiple counts of money laundering, wire fraud, mail fraud, and identity theft by a federal grand jury. If convicted of all charges, he could theoretically face up to 65 years in prison. Although his custodial sentence if convicted is likely to be substantially less than 65 years, he nonetheless faces a significant stay in the U.S. federal penitentiary system.

Spamhaus commends the Seattle FBI and U.S. Attorney for ensuring that the indictment contains both spam-related and non-spam-related counts, and on preparing an indictment which shows so clearly the profile of the typical spammer's activities, such as fraud, identity theft, and other online deception. Spamhaus recognises that a successful prosecution requires careful preparation which inevitably takes longer than the victims of the crime wish. Careful preparation is essential in cases involving CAN-SPAM violations, since the CAN-SPAM Act does not yet have extensive case-law to support it.

Spamhaus is also pleased to note that Soloway's arrest warrant recognizes that he is a serious flight risk, in light of his history of bragging that he is judgement-proof and able to move quickly to avoid prosecution.

Soloway's ROKSO records provide a detailed picture of his spam operation, including evidence of Soloway hiring virus authors to create networks of spam zombies. Although Soloway's public behavior has been more egregious than many spammers, his spam-related activities are similar to those of many of the world's top spammers. Spamhaus hopes that his prosecution proves to be the first of many such prosecutions.


Spamhaus News - ROKSO Spammer Robert Soloway Arrested

May 30, 2007

SEATTLE SPAMMER INDICTED FOR MAIL AND WIRE FRAUD, AGGRAVATED IDENTITY THEFT AND MONEY LAUNDERING
Man Sold Spamming Software and Spamming Services Impacting Millions of Computers

ROBERT ALAN SOLOWAY, 27, the owner of NEWPORT INTERNET MARKETING CORPORATION of Seattle, Washington was arrested today after being indicted by a federal grand jury for Mail Fraud, Wire Fraud, Fraud in Connection with Electronic Mail, Aggravated Identity Theft, and Money Laundering. SOLOWAY will make his initial appearance on the indictment in U.S. District Court in Seattle at 2:30 today.

“Spam is a scourge of the Internet, and Robert Soloway is one of its most prolific practitioners,” said Jeffrey C. Sullivan, United States Attorney for the Western District of Washington. “Our investigators dubbed him the “Spam King” because he is responsible for millions of spam emails.”

According to the indictment, between November 2003, and May 2007, SOLOWAY operated NEWPORT INTERNET MARKETING CORPORATION (NIM) which offered a “broadcast email” software product and “broadcast email” services. These products and services constituted “spam” i.e. bulk high volume commercial email messages that contained false and forged headers and that were relayed using a network of proxy computers (also know as “botnets”). SOLOWAY and NIM made a number of false and fraudulent claims about the products and services on their website. Among them was a claim that the e-mail addresses used for the product and services were “opt-in” email addresses. The website promised a satisfaction guarantee with a full refund to customers who purchased the broadcast email product. However, customers who later complained about the goods and services they had purchased or who asked for refunds were threatened with additional financial charges and referral to a collection agency.

As part of the scheme, SOLOWAY spammed tens of millions of email messages to advertise the NIM websites from which he sold his product and services. Soloway constantly “moved” this website, which was hosted on at least 50 different domains. In at least one instance SOLOWAY used another person’s credit card to pay for the domain name used to host the NIM website. Since 2006, SOLOWAY registered the domain names through Chinese Internet Service Providers in an apparent effort to hide the true ownership of the domain names used to host the NIM website. The spammed messages used to advertise the NIM websites contained false and fraudulent header information, and were relayed using networks of proxy computers (“botnets”) to disguise the true originating IP addresses of the spam. Many of the false headers contained forged e-mail addresses or domain names that belonged to other real people, businesses, or organizations, causing these other innocent parties to mistakenly be blamed for spam transmitted by Soloway. Innocent parties whose email addresses and domain names were forged by SOLOWAY sometimes had their legitimate addresses “blacklisted” as spam sources, as a result. SOLOWAY refused to remove email addresses from his distribution lists, leaving some victims with no choice but to close their email accounts or cancel established domain names to stop the spamming. SOLOWAY and NIM have been the subject of hundreds of complaints to the Federal Trade Commission, Better Business Bureau and the Washington State Attorney General’s Office.

“This case demonstrates that even in this age of electronic mail, spam and botnets the US Mail and commercial carriers are still used, and at times misused, to convey items of value. It continues to be the job of US Postal Inspectors to protect the Postal Service, our customers, and the American public from such abuses. These multi-faceted fraud schemes are best worked by a task force of agencies and we thank our federal partners, the FBI, IRS-Criminal Investigations Division, the FTC and the US Attorney’s Office for their outstanding work on this case,” said Postal Inspection Service Acting Inspector in Charge R.C. Till.

As part of the indictment, the government is seeking $772,998 as proceeds of SOLOWAY’s unlawful activities.

The charges contained in the indictment are only allegations. A person is presumed innocent unless and until he or she is proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

Mail Fraud, Wire Fraud and Money Laundering are all punishable by up to twenty years in prison and three years of supervised release. Fraud in Connection with Electronic Mail is punishable by up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. SOLOWAY is charged with five counts of Aggravated Identity Theft for using the electronic identification of another person (i.e. email address) in connection with fraud of electronic mail. If convicted, the Aggravated Identity Theft statute mandates a two year sentence to be served consecutive to any prison term for the underlying offense.

The case was investigated by the FBI, US Postal Inspection Service and Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigations (IRS-CI) in conjunction with the Computer Hacking and Intellectual Property (CHIP) Task Force. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Kathryn Warma.

For additional information please contact Emily Langlie, Public Affairs Officer for the United States Attorney’s Office, at (206) 553-4110.

Department of Justice - Soloway

Report: Newport Internet Marketing Corporation
- NIM Corporation - Robert Allan Soloway - Robert Allan

Category: Small Business Services
Newport Internet Marketing Corporation, NIM Corporation
Robert Allan Soloway rip-off! Scammed! Ashland, Oregon
*Consumer Comment ..Soloway Slammed

Newport Internet Marketing Corporation - NIM Corporation -
Robert Allan Soloway - Robert Allan
Phone: 206-223-1270
Fax: 206-260-8796

279 Granite Street
Ashland,, Oregon,
U.S.A.
Submitted: 8/25/2004 8:53:49 AM
Modified: 5/31/2007 1:35:43 PM
Reported By
Stefano
Loxahatchee, Florida

Hired Newport Internet Marketing Corporation aka NIM Corporation, Newport Corp, N.I.M. Corp. or the owner Robert Soloway with addresses in Washington State, Oregon & California, mostly PO Boxes. They were to send out HTML email broadcast, I thought the legal way, ended up they SPAMMEED everybody on his list, withing 1 week of order, I received numerous complaint and the site was shut down.

I contacted my credit card company and was able to get my money back. Now I started receiveing mail and phone calls (at 2:00 AM) by the collection company. Direct Debt Collections located at PO BOX 1616 Pacific Palisades, CA 90272. Who can I report this guy to. Regarding SPAM ABUSE, COLLECTION ABUSE, he is on the top 200 Spam list go to The Spamhaus Project look up his name on the list Robert Soloway. Any help would be appreciated.

Stefano
Loxahatchee, Florida
U.S.A.


Rip Off Report: Newport Internet Marketing Corporation, NIM Corporation, Robert Allan Soloway rip-off! Scammed! Ashland, Oregon