Five men were charged in an indictment and a New Jersey woman pleaded guilty in connection with a transnational technical support scam that targeted more than 20,000 victims, many of whom were elderly, in the United States and Canada.
Gagan Lamba, 41, and Harshad Madaan, 34, both of New Delhi, India; Jayant Bhatia, 33, of Ontario, Canada, and Vikash Gupta, 33, of Faridabad, India, are all charged by indictment with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to commit computer fraud, and substantive violations of wire fraud and computer fraud, according to a December 16, 2022, press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Lamba, Madaan, Bhatia, and a fifth defendant, Kulwinder Singh, 34, of Richmond Hill, New York, are also charged with alleged conspiracy to commit money laundering, money laundering, and engaging in monetary transactions in property derived from specified unlawful activity. Bhatia has been charged with offenses related to his participation in a high-tech fraud scheme.
The primary objective was to trick victims into believing that their personal computers were infected with a virus or malware and then convince the victims to pay hundreds or thousands of dollars to the fraud ring for phony computer repair services. Over the course of the conspiracy, the fraud ring generated more than $10 million in proceeds from at least 20,000 victims.
