It really does not pay to Spam when you get caught
A 25 year old man in Tokyo Japan was arrested for sending out over 2 billion spam email messages that promoted gambling and dating websites. An Internet Service Provider (ISP) has been tracking this man, Yuki Shiina, since May 2006. Because he sent out so many email messages it became suspicious to the ISP and they have since been monitoring the activity. Now Shiina's malicious activities have granted him a free ticket to jail.
It is said by Sophos, a security vendor, that Shiina acquired a list of about 600,000 email addresses in return for 100,000 yen ($927 US Dollars) and had a return of 2 million yen ($18,540 US Dollars) for advertising on his email spamming excursion. Shiina broke the law in Tokyo that prohibits sending out spam emails with fake sender information. With so many spam emails sent to various recipients it landed Shiina behind bars.
Could Spammers in the USA or other countries get caught?
Each state in the United States of America has its own group of laws set by legislation for spamming. ISP's are more concerned with tracking down hackers and bit torrent/illegal file sharers than a spammer. ISP's have the ability to track the data sent over their network but in America they have chose to crack down on other viable threats.
Spamming, to most people, seems to be something handled individually by consumer spam filters or company network software. In other countries there are not any specific laws in place to punish spammers. Countries that do have certain laws that prohibit spamming do not have the man power or adequate law enforcement to monitor the activity and strictly enforce the law. This is why many spam emails originate from various countries in Asia, Europe, and Africa. Luckily Japan has measures in place to have caught Shiina in the act of sending out a large number of spam messages.