CBI, US authorities crack down on fraud scheme

IN ‘an unprecedented coordinated effort’, India’s Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the US Department of Justice took simultaneous actions against a technical support fraud scheme, which was allegedly masterminded by an American citizen and operated from call centres in India to defraud hundreds of elderly and vulnerable people in the US, officials said.

Michael Brian Cotter, 59, of Glendale, California, provided support to his accomplices in India in furtherance of the scheme, the US Justice Department said in a statement on Thursday.

In response to a complaint filed in the US, a federal court has ordered Cotter and five companies to stop engaging in the technical-support fraud scheme, which allegedly defrauded hundreds of elderly and vulnerable American victims, it said.

The complaint was filed by the civil division’s consumer protection branch and the US attorney’s office for the southern district of Florida and the action was coordinated by the Transnational Elder Fraud Strike Force established last year to combat foreign fraud schemes targeting American senior citizens.

The complaint sought both preliminary and permanent injunctions to prevent the defendants from further victimising consumers.

According to the complaint, the defendants’ scheme contacted US consumers via internet pop-up messages that falsely appeared to be security alerts from Microsoft or another wellknown company. The pop-up messages fraudulently claimed that the consumer’s computer was infected by a virus, purported to run a scan of the consumer’s computer, falsely confirmed the presence of a virus and malware, and then provided a toll-free number to call for assistance.

When victims called the toll-free number, they were connected to India-based call centres participating in the fraud scheme. Call centre employees asked victims to give them remote access to their computers and told them that they detected viruses or other malware. Then, the employees falsely diagnosed non-existent problems and allegedly asked the victims to pay hundreds of dollars for unnecessary services and software.