A 25-year-old man in Japan was arrested after an Internet service provider complained to authorities that he was clogging the pipeline with huge amounts of spam.

Police told local media that Yuki Shiina allegedly sent out over 2 billion unsolicited emails. It is believed he bought 600,000 email addresses off the internet for 100,000 yen (US $927) and earned over 2 million yen (US $18,540) through the spam campaign.

Shiina broke Japanese laws by allegedly faking sender information on emails in an attempt to avoid detection.

Will these arrests do any good? Sophos believes so.

The vendor’s evangelist, Graham Cluley, a senior technology consultant, said police are increasingly cracking down on spammers.

“No-one who hears about a single person believed to have sent 2.2 billion spam emails can be in any doubt as to the scale of the problem, and it’s essential for a clear message to be sent out that the police are serious about catching the criminals responsible,” Cluley said in a press release.

Cluley is right that we’re hearing more publicly about spammer arrests. Last May, U.S. investigators arrested Robert Alan Soloway after years of investigations. Some experts said that it could result in a short-term dip in the volume of spam. There was a short term dip, but it was mainly associated with the summer months.

In November another “Bot Roast” was announced by the FBI. Eight people were arrested and charged in that campaign.

Has spam been reduced? Nope.