Most prolific spam gang

In November 2009, a US district court ordered the worst known “spam gang” to pay $15.5 (£9.4 million) for sending out unsolicited email messages advertising and marketing various dubious, herbal treatments and prescription drugs. Brothers Lane and Shane Atkinson, and a US citizen, Jody Smith, who controlled a network of some 35,000 computers, have all been ordered to pay fines as a result of an investigation by the US Federal Trade Commission. When their operations were suspended in 2008 under the US Can-Spam Act, which outlaws the sending of large volumes of unsolicited emails, more than 3 million complaints had been received by law enforcement agencies, and the gang was alleged to have been responsible for one third of the world's junk mail.