WASHINGTON - THE US Justice Department said Wednesday that four men, including a Chinese national, have been charged in connection with an e-mail spamming scheme targeting universities across the United States.

Liu Guang Ming of China and three Americans - Amir Ahmad Shah, 28, his brother Osmaan Ahmad Shah, 25, and Paul Zucker, 55 - were charged in a 51-count federal grand jury indictment, the Justice Department said.

It said more than 2,000 colleges and universities across the United States had been victimised by the e-mail spam and more than US$4 million (S$6 million) worth of products such as MP3 players and teeth whitener sold to students.

'Nearly every college and university in the United States was impacted by this scheme,' US Attorney Matt Whitworth said in a statement.

'Illegal hacking and e-mail spamming wreaks havoc on computer networks,' he said. 'These schools spent significant funds to repair the damage and to implement costly preventive measures to defend themselves against future intrusions.'

The Justice Department said Amir and Osmaan Shah were under arrest and had appeared in court. It did not provide any information about the whereabouts of Liu or Zucker.

The Justice Department said the Shahs had allegedly developed e-mail extracting programs which they used to illegally harvest more than eight million student e-mail addresses.

It said they allegedly used the database of e-mail addresses to send spam e-mails selling various products and services to the students. The Justice Department said Liu allegedly rented the Shahs access to a network of 40 servers under his control in China for hosting websites and sending spam e-mail.

Liu performed the network administration duties in China, and worked to keep the sites operational, it said. Zucker sent spam e-mail for his own products and partnered with the Shahs when they were leasing space on Liu's servers in China, the department said.

The US Congress in 2003 made sending unsolicited bulk commercial e-mail a federal crime punishable by prison terms and hefty fines. -- AFP