The United States’ Federal Bureau of Investigation on Wednesday said that it had shut down a call centre operating in India that allegedly defrauded hundreds of elderly persons “out of millions of dollars through tech support scams”.
The law enforcement agency also said that two senior executives – 42-year-old Adam Young from Miami, Florida, and 33-year-old Harrison Gevirtz from Las Vegas, Nevada – have admitted to “turning a blind eye” to the alleged malpractice that was allegedly being enabled by their business.
The FBI stated that Young and Gevirtz had pleaded guilty to operating a business that provided services related to telecommunications, including telephone numbers, call routing services, call tracking and call forwarding services, to customers they knew were engaged in tech-support fraud schemes.
These schemes targeted persons in the US and abroad, added the federal agency.
The FBI said that Young and Gevirtz are scheduled to be sentenced on June 16.
The investigation that concluded in the executives pleading guilty had begun in 2020 and led to the conviction of five India-based telemarketing fraudsters and a former employee of their call routing company, according to the FBI.
The agency said that Indian citizens Sahil Narang, Chirag Sachdeva, Abrar Anjum and Manish Kumar were convicted of charges related to telemarketing fraud schemes based in India that “targeted and defrauded Americans of millions of dollars, many of them vulnerable to fraud schemes due to age or infirmity”.
The fifth person to be convicted was Jagmeet Singh Virk. The FBI did not specify in its statement what Virk’s role was.
It said that the investigation showed that call centres based in India utilised Young and Gervitz’s business to route their “tech fraud” scheme calls and, in some instances, advised them on methods intended to reduce complaints and prevent account terminations.
It added that the schemes used “deceptive pop-up messages” to convince computer users that their computer had been infected with viruses or malware.
“Victims were directed to call a phone number on the pop-up message or advertisement, which connected the victims to call centres, where they were persuaded to pay hundreds of dollars for unnecessary or fictitious technical-support services,” the law enforcement agency said.
In some instances, call centre agents remotely accessed victims’ computers and obtained personal and financial information, it added.
According to the FBI, Young and Gevirtz failed to report the schemes to law enforcement officials after learning about their customers’ fraud schemes between 2017 and April 2022.
Ted E Docks, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Boston division, said that what Young and Gevirtz did was “downright despicable”.
“By their own admission, they willfully profited from telemarketing and tech support scammers, here and abroad, who preyed on the elderly, exploited the vulnerable, and drained victims of their life savings and peace of mind,” Docks said.
The special agent also noted that tech support scams cost Americans $2.1 billion last year.
Written by Leah Thomas. Edited by Sneha.
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