Fake Viruses, a Free Antivirus Tool and $6 Million: Tech Support Ring Leader Gets Seven Years

Read that again.

On July 31, 2024, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, part of the Department of Justice (DOJ), announced that Vinoth Ponmaran was sentenced to seven years in prison for his role in a tech support fraud conspiracy. Per the DOJ, the scheme took more than $6 million from what it counts as at least 6,500 victims across the U.S. and Canada, many of them elderly.

So how did it work?

According to the DOJ, from about March 2015 through July 2018, Ponmaran was part of a fraud ring based in the U.S. and India. Here's the playbook:

• The pop-up. Windows appeared on victims' computers falsely claiming a virus. Some warned that restarting or shutting down could "cause serious damage to the system," including "complete data loss."
• The fake logo. Some pop-ups used the logo of a well-known tech company, without permission. The phone numbers had nothing to do with that company.
• The freeze. The virus was fake, but the pop-ups really did freeze some computers, so people couldn't get to their files. That's what pushed a lot of them to call.
• The "fix." For several hundred or thousand dollars, fake technicians remotely accessed the computer and ran a free antivirus tool.

That's it. That was the whole service.

Ponmaran's role

Per the DOJ, Ponmaran was an India-based leader of the ring. He:

• Managed a call center in India that provided the fake repair services.
• Recruited people in the U.S. to register fraudulent companies and open bank accounts to receive victims' money.
• Laundered proceeds, including by directing co-conspirators to wire money to accounts in India and the U.S.

He previously pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Vernon S. Broderick. On top of seven years in prison, he got three years of supervised release and forfeiture of $6,110,884.51.

Here's the thing ... the U.S. side

His co-defendants were sentenced in 2022 after guilty pleas:

• Romana Leyva got 100 months in prison, plus forfeiture of $4,679,586.93 and restitution of $2,707,882.91.
• Ariful Haque got a year and a day, plus forfeiture of $38,886.32 and restitution of $470,672.16.

So the people who set up companies and bank accounts here in the U.S. went to prison too. Leyva's sentence was actually longer than Ponmaran's.

The case was investigated by Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) El Dorado Task Force in New York, with help from the New York City Police Department.

Why should you care?

Look, if you're in pay per call or lead gen, you know tech support is a vertical where the bad stuff hides in plain sight. Pop-up traffic. Brand logos. Urgent callers. Big tickets.

Every one of those calls came from somewhere. An ad. A phone number. A routing platform. A payment account. If you're in that chain, you have a choice to make about what you let through.

What to do this week

It's not rocket science.

• DO NOT run or buy pop-up tech support traffic. If the creative says "virus detected," you're done.
• Ask to see the creative. Every publisher, every time.
• Watch for brand logos you don't have the right to use.
• Listen to calls. If "technicians" are charging hundreds to run free software, that's not a business. That's a scam.
• Know who you're paying. New LLCs with fresh bank accounts and no history? Ask hard questions.

Protect the people on the other end of the line, OK? They're somebody's mom. Somebody's grandpa.