Milwaukee FBI takes down 'King of Spam'

Dec. 2, 2010
23-year-old Russian accused of generating a third of the world's computer spam

MILWAUKEE --

A 23-year-old Russian is accused in Milwaukee of generating a third of the world's computer spam.

An FBI agent in Milwaukee is credited with bringing down the 'king of spam,' a 23-year-old Moscow man accused of controlling a network of infected computers generating an estimated 10 billion unwanted e-mails a day.

A federal criminal complaint says the FBI and the Federal Trade Commission have been tracking Oleg Nikolaenko since at least 2007.

He was arrested last month during a visit to Las Vegas. He's scheduled to appear in federal court in Milwaukee Friday.

His attorney, Christopher Van Wagner, said they are prepared to present "a rigorous defense."

Authorities subpoenaed Nikolaenko's Google mail records and said they found files such as the malware that ran his robot network, called botnet.

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