The leader of a tech support fraud scheme, Vinoth Ponmaran, has been sentenced to seven years in prison after tricking at least 6,500 victims and generating more than $6 million in fraudulent revenue.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ), the fraudulent operation specifically targeted elderly victims in the United States and Canada.
Between March 2015 and July 2018, Ponmaran, 36, ran an operation that caused pop-up windows to appear on victims’ computer screens, falsely warning of a virus infection. To make the alert appear credible, the scammers used the logo of a renowned tech firm and provided a phone number for “technical support.”
“No virus had infected victims’ computers, and the technical support phone numbers in the pop-up windows were not associated with the legitimate technology company,” explains the DoJ announcement. “These representations were false and designed to trick victims into paying the fraud ring to ‘fix’ a problem that did not exist.”
The pop-ups created a sense of urgency, warning victims about the increased risk of losing data if the system was rebooted. In some cases, the pop-ups even “froze” the victim’s computer, making it impossible to access files and data.
Although the DoJ announcement does not specify how these pop-ups appeared on victims’ systems, common methods include visiting compromised websites, malvertising campaigns, phishing emails, and pre-existing infections.
Victims who called the scammers for help were advised to pay hundreds to thousands of dollars, depending on the fake support package they were offered. The scammers used remote access tools to perform a scan on the victim’s system using a free anti-virus tool, making the process appear legitimate.
Ponmaran managed an India-based call center that handled the defrauding process and was responsible for recruiting co-conspirators in the United States who laundered the proceeds through American bank accounts.
In 2022, two of Ponmaran’s co-conspirators, Romana Leyva and Ariful Haque, were also sentenced to prison. Leyva received 100 months and was ordered to forfeit $4.7 million and pay $2.7 million in restitution. Haque received 12 months and one day in prison and was ordered to forfeit $38,800 and pay $470,600 in restitution.
In addition to his prison sentence, Ponmaran is ordered to forfeit over $6.1 million and will be subject to three years of supervised release after his prison term.