New York, Dec 18 (IANS) Five Indian men and a woman have been charged in connection with a transnational technical support scam that targeted more than 20,000 victims, many of them elderly, in the US and Canada.
Gagan Lamba, 41, and Harshad Madaan, 34, from New Delhi; Jayant Bhatia, 33, from Ontario, Canada, and Vikash Gupta, 33, from Faridabad, were charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, computer fraud, and substantive violations of wire fraud and computer fraud, US Attorney Philip R Sellinger said.
Lamba, Madaan, Bhatia, and a fifth defendant, Kulwinder Singh, 34, of Richmond Hill, New York, are 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 offences related to his participation in a high-tech fraud 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, based on her role in the scheme.
“As alleged in the indictment, the defendants are charged with using access to personal computers to run a high-tech extortion scheme on a global scale,” the US Attorney said in a Department of Justice statement.
Sellinger said that the scamsters frequently targeted senior citizens and scared them into paying for unnecessary and useless computer repair services.
According to…
