Spammer fined $15.5m for peddling illegal medicines

A US federal court has levied a $15.5m fine on the head of a group of spammers thought to be responsible for one third of the world's junk mail and the supply of thousands of illegal pharmaceuticals.

Ringleader Lance Atkinson and co-conspirators, including his brother Shane, specialised in supplying pharmaceutical products and other items such as herbal penis enlargement products under the Target Pharmacy and Canadian Healthcare brands, as well as other labels.

An investigation by the US Federal Trade Commission found that many of the spam emails sent out by the network offered medicines claimed to originate from US-licensed pharmacies, but were in fact supplied from India.

The FTC was unable to undertake a comprehensive analysis of the products to see how many were counterfeit, but said the evidence suggested they were "potentially unsafe." An analysis of a penis enlargement product purported to be herbal found that it contained the erectile dysfunction drug sildenafil, the active ingredient in Pfizer's Viagra.

Products supplied by the network included the usual crop of lifestyle medicines, including Viagra and other ED treatments, including GlaxoSmithKline's Levitra (vardenafil) and Eli Lilly's Cialis (tadalafil).

Worryingly, the group also supplied the hair loss treatment Propecia (finasteride) which could cause birth defects if handled by pregnant women, and other drugs for serious diseases such as Lipitor (atorvastatin) for high blood cholesterol, arthritis treatment Celebrex (celecoxib) and the antidepressant Zoloft (sertraline), all of which are marketed by Pfizer.

Last year a US district court ordered the network's ringleaders to cease their spam operations, after the US authorities received more than three million complaints from web users.

In addition to the $15.15 million that Atkinson and his company have been ordered to pay, the three companies affiliated with Smith are liable for $3.77 million.

Another gang member, Jody Smith, has agreed to hand over around $800,000-worth of assets and faces up to five years in prison, having pled guilty in August to the criminal charge of conspiracy to traffic counterfeit goods. He is due to be sentenced later this month.