Man charged in NY in $10 million tech support scheme targeting 7,500 elderly people
According to federal prosecutors citing the indictment, the ring worked by causing a pop-up window -- which included without authorization the corporate logo on a legitimate tech company -- to appear on their targets' computers which claimed falsely that a virus had infected the device and that they should call a particular phone number for technical support.
According to prosecutors, while the purported “virus” was a hoax, the pop-up window did cause various victims’ computers to completely “freeze,” thereby preventing the victims from accessing the data and files in their computer—which caused some victims to call the phone number listed on the pop-up window.
Ponmaran, according to federal prosecutors, was an India-based leader of the ring who managed a call center in that country that was used to provide the purported tech repairs in the scheme. Additionally, prosecutors allege that Ponmaran recruited co-conspirators in the U.S. to register fake corporate entities and open bank accounts used to receive the payments from victims and also directed co-conspirators to wire fraud these payments received to accounts in India.