Gagan Lamba, 41, and Harshad Madaan, 34, both of New Delhi, as well as Jayant Bhatia, 33, of Ontario, Canada, and Vikash Gupta, 33, of Faridabad, were charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
New York: Five Indian men and a woman have been charged in connection with a transnational technical support scam that targeted over 20,000 victims in the United States and Canada, many of whom were elderly.
According to US Attorney Philip R Sellinger, Gagan Lamba, 41, and Harshad Madaan, 34, of New Delhi; Jayant Bhatia, 33, of Ontario, Canada; and Vikash Gupta, 33, of Faridabad, were charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, computer fraud, and substantive violations of wire fraud and computer fraud.
Kulwinder Singh, 34, of Richmond Hill, New York, is also charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering, money laundering, and engaging in monetary transactions in property derived from specified unlawful activity.
Bhatia has been charged with crimes stemming from his involvement in a high-tech fraud scheme.
Based on her role in the scheme, the sixth defendant, Meghna Kumar, 50, of Edison, New Jersey, pleaded guilty last week to information charging her with engaging in monetary transactions in property derived from specified unlawful activity.
“As alleged in the indictment, the defendants are charged with using personal computer access to run a high-tech extortion scheme on a global scale,” the US Attorney said in a statement released by the Department of Justice.
According to Sellinger, scammers frequently target senior citizens and scare them into paying for unnecessary and ineffective computer repair services.
According to court documents and statements, the defendants and others were members of a criminal fraud ring that ran a technical support fraud scheme in the United States, India, and Canada from 2012 to November 2022.
According to the press release, the scheme targeted victims in the United States and Canada, including New Jersey, with many of them being elderly.
The primary goal was to dupe victims into believing their computers were infected with a virus or malware, and then to persuade them to pay hundreds or thousands of dollars to the fraud ring for bogus computer repair services.
The fraud ring generated more than $10 million in proceeds from at least 20,000 victims over the course of the conspiracy.
The fraud ring caused bogus pop-up windows to appear on victims’ computers. The pop-ups were intended to “freeze” the victims’ computers, preventing them from using or accessing files on their computers.
The pop-ups also falsely claimed that the victims’ computers were infected with a virus or otherwise compromised, and directed them to call a phone number for technical assistance.
The pop-ups would occasionally warn victims not to shut down their computers.
In reality, the pop-ups were a ruse designed to fool victims into thinking their computers were infected with viruses that did not exist.
Victims who called the technical support phone numbers displayed in the pop-ups were routed to one or more Indian call centres.
The fraud ring caused bogus pop-up windows to appear on victims’ computers. The pop-ups were intended to “freeze” the victims’ computers, preventing them from using or accessing files on their computers.
Members of the TFraud ring at the call centres falsely repeated that the victims’ computers were infected with viruses and offered to fix the alleged problem for a fee.
The members of the fraud ring would then request permission to remotely access the victims’ computers.
Once granted access, fraud ring members would sometimes download and run a freely available adblocker tool, inform the victim that the “issue” had been resolved, and then leave a text file with payment instructions on the computer’s desktop.
Victims were told to pay the fraud ring anywhere from hundreds to thousands of dollars.
This was accomplished by either electronically scanning checks made payable to one of several shell companies established by the fraud ring or by sending physical checks via FedEx to addresses maintained by Singh and Kumar in New Jersey.
On December 14, Indian authorities arrested Madaan and Gupta on local charges for their roles in the tech support scheme.While Lamba remains at large, Bhatia was apprehended by Canadian authorities in response to a provisional arrest request from the US, according to a Department of Justice release.
Singh, who was arrested at his home in New York, appeared in federal court in Newark on December 14 before US Magistrate Judge Michael A Hammer and was released on $100,000 unsecured bond.
According to the release, the maximum penalty for wire fraud and computer fraud is 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine, or twice the gross amount of gain or loss from the offence, whichever is greater.
The charges of money laundering carry a statutory maximum sentence of 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $500,000 or twice the value of the property involved, whichever is greater.
The maximum penalty for dealing in criminal proceeds is ten years in prison and a $250,000 fine, or twice the value of the property involved in the transaction, whichever is greater.
