Poker Pro Masa Kagawa Arrested for Running Android Malware Ring

News broke across the poker stratosphere this week that high stakes player Masa Kagawa has been arrested for his alleged role in running an Android malware ring in addition to running a scam dating website.

Kagawa was taken into custody by Chiba Prefectural Police in Japan.

From Symantec.com:

From our observations, the operation began around September, 2012 and ended in April, 2013 when authorities raided the company office. We confirmed around 150 domains were registered to host the malicious apps during this time span. According to media reports, the group was able to collect approximately 37 million email addresses from around 810,000 Android devices. The company earned over 390 million yen (approximately 3.9 million US dollars) by running a fake online dating service called Sakura site in the last five months of the spam operation. Spam used to lure victims to the dating site was sent to the addresses collected by the malware.

Kagawa, 50, is president of the Koei Planning, an IT firm located in Shibuya, Tokyo.  He has appeared on GSN’s “High Stake Poker” and finished within the top 5 in various big name tournament events including the Aussie Millions (2007 and this year) and last year’s Poker Stars Monte Carlo EPT Grand Finale.

- Ace King, Gambling911.com