The serial spammer who was arrested as part of the operation to neutralize the Darkode black market was sentenced to two years of judicial supervision.
27-year-old hacker Naveed Ahmed, also known as Nav or semaph0re, was sentenced last week to two years of probation for his involvement in a massive spam campaign organized through the Darkode.
In the summer of 2015, coordinated operations by American authorities, in collaboration with European law enforcement units, resulted in the arrest of 28 members of the criminal organization that operated through the infamous Darkode, the underground forum through which hackers advertise their services and sell stolen data.
Last July, the FBI arrested twelve suspects for participating in illegal activities through the Darkode forum, many of whom quickly confessed their guilt, in the hope of receiving a reduced sentence.
One of them is Ahmed, who pleaded guilty in August after being charged by the FBI with conspiracy to send spam, along with his two accomplices, 31-year-old Phillip R. Fleitz, also known as Strife, and 28-year-old Dewayne Watts, also known as m3t4lh34d metal.
According to the FBI, the three accomplices maintained a fully functional spam botnet based on servers in China and exploited vulnerable routers in third-world countries to send millions of spam messages.
The criminal group's activities began in September 2011 and lasted until February 2013, while the spammers' total profits reached $3,000 per week.
