The Federal Trade Commission announced on Tuesday that, in collaboration with authorities in New Zealand, they’ve managed to shut down a vast international spam ring that crowded our e-mails with prescription drugs and Viagra offers. The “spam gang,” as they called it, was the world’s largest. The FCT demanded the court to issue a temporary injunction prohibiting the conspirators from spamming and making false product claims, and has frozen all of their assets in anticipation for the trial.

The spam gang is an international network active that includes Jody Smith, and Lance Atkinson -- well-known spammer and former partner of Mike van Essen in the ROSKO case, according to Spamhous, the anti-spam organization. In 2005, the FTC won a $2.2 million judgment against Atkinson and his then business partner for similar spam activities that marketed herbal products.

Together, Atkinson and Smith controlled four companies, Inet Ventures Pty Ltd., Tango Pay inc., Click Fusion inc., and TwoBucks Trading Limited. FTC filed a lawsuit against the two for spamming, holding Atkinson responsible for all product claims, and Smith liable for claims made for the pharmaceutical products. The two spammers marketed a variety of products though spam messages, such as mail-enhancement pills, prescription drugs and weight-loss pills.

The spammers claimed in their e-mails that the prescription drugs came from an US-licensed pharmacy which dispensed generic versions of drugs such as Levitra, Avodart, Cialis, Propecia, Viagra, Lipitor, Celebrex and Zoloft, with FDA's approval. Tests revealed that the dugs came from India, didn’t have FDA’s approval and were potentially unsafe.

In that respect, the FDA tested the herbal male-enhancement pill “VPXL” which the spammers promoted as a wonder pill that supposedly permanently increased the size of the user’s penis, and revealed that not only was the pill inefficient, but it was also unsafe. VPXL were found to contain sildenafil, which is normally contained in Viagra; the ingredient is known to potentially drop the blood pressure in men also taking nitrate-containing drugs to treat diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol or heart disease.

Furthermore, the claims that their weight-loss pills contained Hoodia gordonii, a plant that supposedly could help people lose up to six pounds in just one week, were not only false, but also broke the federal law, FTC reported.

The spammers also assured consumers that their websites, “Target Pharmacy” and “Canadian Healthcare,” were encrypted with SSL technology, which protected their personal information, such as credit card information. However, the investigators found this was also a false claim.

The FTC reported that the spam gang sent billions of spam e-mails, with false header information, directing consumers to a website operated by them. In addition to that, they also violated the CAN-SPAM (Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing) Act of 2003, by failing to provide an opt-out link and a physical postal address.

Despite the announcement, the spam kept on coming, but according to Spamhous, this is normal, considering that the spammers were using botnet spam system that automatically sends the messages without being controlled.