Four suburban Detroit residents were accused April 28 of e-mailing fraudulent sales pitches for weight loss products in what are believed to be the first criminal charges levied under the new and still-debated CAN-SPAM Act.
Daniel J. Lin, James J. Lin, Mark M. Sadek, and Christopher Chung were accused of hiding their identities in "hundreds of thousands of sales pitches," and sending their volume of spam messages through vulnerable computers over the Internet, according to several reports.
Sadek and Chung were freed on unspecified bond, while the Lins had not been arrested at this writing, U.S. Attorney's Office spokesperson Gina Balaya told the Associated Press.
Court documents in the case accuse the men of selling weight loss patches under such corporate names as AIT Herbal, Phoenix Avatar, and others. They were said to have based the operation in Detroit and nearby communities.
Investigators consulted a Mayo Medical School professor, Dr. Michael D. Jensen, who confirmed the product didn't work, the AP said.
The Federal Trade Commission told federal postal investigators they got over 10,000 complaints about unwanted e-mails sent by the operation.
The FTC planned a major April 29 press conference to discuss the case.
