International spam network closed down

Chicago —- E-mail inboxes may be clogged with a little less spam —- at least for a while.

Authorities said Tuesday they have shut down one of the largest spam operations in the world, a vast network involving countries from New Zealand to China and the United States.

The spammers sent out billions of e-mails in recent years urging people to click through to Web sites that allegedly used false claims to peddle prescription drugs, as well as “male enhancement” and weight-loss pills.

The Federal Trade Commission received more than 3 million complaints about the spam and related Web sites, officials said. The sites were difficult to distinguish from legitimate online pharmacies, said Steve Baker of the FTC.

The operation violated the federal CAN-SPAM Act of 2003, meant to restrict commercial spam, the FTC said.

Servers in China hosted the sites and the drugs were shipped from India, while operatives in Cyprus and the former Soviet republic of Georgia processed credit card information, Baker said.