Ballwin 'Spam' Brothers Get 3 Years Probation

Two brothers from Ballwin were each sentenced Thursday to three years of probation for an email scheme that sent unsolicited merchandising messages to millions of people.

The sentences for the two men, Amir Ahmad Shah, 30, and Osmaan Ahmad Shah, 27, include three months of house arrest and three months at a halfway house. The brothers also will be required to forfeit almost $440,000 in cash and property.

The men were convicted under provisions of the federal CAN-SPAM Act, which in 2003 outlawed mass emails if the sender tries to mask where the emails came from, falsifies the emails' header information or accesses another computer system without permission.

The Shahs pled guilty in July 2010 to an email scheme that targeted American college students. Students' private and university email addresses stored on university computers were accessed without permission at the University of Missouri and hundreds of other universities, a statement from the U.S. Department of Justice said.

Throughout 2004, the Shahs and their conspirators had acquired more than 8 million email addresses, which were used to solicit digital cameras, iPods, computers, teeth whitening kits, magazine subscriptions and various other merchandise.

As one of many security measures meant to prevent the messages from being traced to them, the Shah brothers also used Web hosting in China, which referred to as "Offshore Bullet Proof Hosting" meaning it obscured the email's origin and deferred complaints from recipients.

“It was extremely helpful, in the investigation of such a highly technical case, for us to reach out to industry experts in both the public and private sectors for their input,” U.S. Attorney Beth Phillips said in a news release.

Among the assets the court forced the brothers to give up was $78,980 in several bank accounts, two residential properties in St. Louis and Columbia, MO with a combined value of $344,250), a 2001 BMW belonging to Amir Shah and a 2002 Lexus belonging to Osmaan Shah, and several Internet domain names.

The Shahs also forfeited hundreds of computers and electronics items that either were purchased with scheme proceeds or were marked as inventory to be sold.