Russian ‘King of Spam’ pleads not guilty

23-year-old Russian national Oleg Nikolaenko has pleaded not guilty to charges relating to the US CAN-SPAM act.

Nikolaenko has been dubbed the ‘King of Spam’ with investigators claiming he has been responsible for up to a third of spam emails.

Nikolaenko was arrested in Las Vegas last month with prosecutors alleging that Nikolaenko has utilised a network of malware which installed malicious code on computers and that so-called botnets under control of Nikolaenko had sent out ‘billions’ of unwanted emails.

More than half a million virus infected computers were involved and the US authorities denied Nikolaenko bail on the basis that as a Russian national he was expected to flee the country if he was released. The prosecution has said that Nikolaenko’s network was capable of sending 10 billion emails a day.

Image: Freezelight (Flickr)