Cambridge police nab UK spammer

Cambridgeshire police arrest UK spammer and charge him with threats to kill

Dinah Greek, Computeractive 30 Nov 2004

Sometimes known as the UK's biggest spammer,Peter Francis Clifford Macrae is in police custody today after appearing in court this afternoon.

Macrae, a 22 year-old from St Neots in Cambridgeshire has been charged with four counts of threats to kill and of public nuisance by bombarding Cambridgeshire police's switchboard with threatening phone calls.

"Macrae was granted bail earlier this year. He was initially facing two charges of threats to kill and making a public nuisance but after he failed to appear in court, a bench warrant was issued for his arrest and two further charges of threats to kill were added in court this afternoon.

"These threats were made to Cambridgeshire police switchboard and a trading standards officer who was investigating his companies," a spokeswoman for Cambridgeshire police told Computeractive.

Macrae has been remanded in police custody and will make another court appearance next week said the police.

Macrae, aka Weaselboy, is the only UK resident listed on The SpamHaus Project's Register Of Known Spam Operations (ROKSO). This blacklist identifies the 200 people and groups purportedly responsible for the majority of spam.

Computeractive has followed his activities since summer 2003 and found he has been linked to various internet-based scams and he is currently also the subject of an interim injunction brought by Nominet, the .uk domain name registry in the High Court.

The injunctions and orders against him and Ultra Technologies Ltd, a company of which Macrae is the sole director prevent either defendant from causing any damage to Nominet's computer systems, harassing Nominet staff, using the .uk WHOIS database, or sending any documents in the format of the 'Domain Registry Services' notices circulating earlier this year.

The defendants were further ordered to provide Nominet with a list of names and addresses of those to whom they may have sent the bogus invoice letters and to cover the costs incurred by Nominet in rectifying these actions.

Nominet's case alleges that the defendants have misused Nominet's intellectual property rights in its WHOIS service and, by sending bogus 'Domain Expiration Notices' to .uk registrants under the name of Domain Registry Services, have falsely passed themselves off as having some form of official relationship with Nominet.

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