Japanese police have arrested a “prolific spammer” who has allegedly bombarded inboxes all over the world with hundreds of millions of email messages punting internet gambling and dating sites.

Investigators believe Yuki Shiina, 25, sent as many as 2.2 billion spam messages using what appears to be fundamental spamming techniques. He allegedly purchased a list of over 600,000 email addresses for the cost of ¥100,000 ($927), earning ¥2m ($18,540) through a subsequent spamming campaign, security vendor Sophos reports.

Yukio Shiina was picked up by police on Friday, after his ISP reported him sending huge amounts of email. Suspected to have bought some 600,000 email addresses, he made a 2,000% profit on his investment, pulling in 2 million yen ($18,500, £9,500, €12,600) from the gambling and dating services he promoted. His spam violated Japanese laws insisting on accurate sender information in emails.

Police acted after an internet service provider complained about the volume of spam. It appears that Shiina faked the sender information on the e-mails in an attempt to avoid detection. This broke Japanese laws and allowed police to act.