Weaselboy hit for six!
Peter Francis Macrae, the spammer and fraudster who stole the domains of people and companies throughout the UK, was jailed yesterday for six years.
Unfortunately, those people whose domain names ended up registered by one of Macraes companies may well lose their domain names.
As well as the crimes for which Macrae was convicted, see below, he sent out a series of emails telling people to "Click here". He didn't mention that they were clicking to transfer their domain names to him. The domains in question are now registered through Enom (who were unhelpful in this matter), and under the control of Macrae and his associates. In fact, they are likely now to be under no-ones control, and will languish until they are up for renewal, at which point they will be released to the open market.
From the Register
A 23-year-old man branded the UK's worst spammer has been jailed for six years for a string of offences including blackmail and threatening to kill.
Peter Francis-Macrae, of St Neots, Cambridgeshire, was also found guilty of orchestrating a £1.6m European domain name scam even though he had no right to flog .eu domains.
And when the authorities began closing in, Francis-Macrae turned nasty, threatening to slit the throats of trading standards officers investigating his scams.
He also told a police switchboard operator, who'd recently been diagnosed with cancer, that he hoped she caught the disease.
Operating from a bedroom in his father's home Francis-Macrae made a fortune using spam to tout his domain registration scams. Not only did he sell unavailable .eu domains, he also sent out fake re-registration letters to UK domain owners. And although his various bank accounts have been frozen he refused to tell the court where he was hiding £425,background-color: #b7c3cf; -moz-border-radius: 10px; min-height: 20px; width: 575px; font-weight: normal; padding: 15px 15px 15px 15px;background-color: #b7c3cf; -moz-border-radius: 10px; min-height: 20px; width: 575px; font-weight: normal; padding: 15px 15px 15px 15px;background-color: #b7c3cf; -moz-border-radius: 10px; min-height: 20px; width: 575px; font-weight: normal; padding: 15px 15px 15px 15px; saying police would steal the loot.
Sentencing Francis-Macrae yesterday Judge Nicholas Coleman described him as "one of the most vindictive young men [he'd] ever seen". ®
