Date: 07-31-2024

Case Style:

United States of America v. Vinoth Ponmaran

Case Number: 1:19-cr-00667

Judge: Vernon S. Broderick

Court: The United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (Manhattan County)

Plaintiff's Attorney: The United States Attorney’s Office in New York City

Defendant's Attorney:

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Description:

New York City, New York criminal defense lawyer represented the Defendant charged with Tech Support Fraud Scheme
Leader Of Tech Support Fraud Scheme Sentenced To Seven Years In Prison

“Vinoth Ponmaran was a leader of a sophisticated fraud scheme that preyed on over 6,000 victims, including the elderly. This conspiracy caused pop-up windows to appear on victims’ computers—pop-up windows which claimed, falsely, that a virus had infected the victim’s computer. Through this and other misrepresentations, Ponmaran's fraud scheme deceived his many victims, including some of society’s most vulnerable members, into paying a total of more than $6 million. Today’s sentence sends a clear message: those who exploit the vulnerable for financial gain will pay a heavy price.”

According to the allegations contained in the Superseding Information, court filings, and statements made in court, including during PONMARAN’s plea proceeding and sentencing:

From approximately March 2015 through July 2018, PONMARAN was a member of a criminal fraud ring (the “Fraud Ring”) based in the U.S. and India that committed a technical support fraud scheme targeting elderly victims located across the U.S. and Canada, including in the Southern District of New York. The Fraud Ring’s primary objective was to trick victims into believing that their computers were infected with malware in order to deceive them into paying hundreds or thousands of dollars for phony computer repair services. Over the course of the conspiracy, the Fraud Ring generated more than $6 million in proceeds from at least 6,500 victims.

The scheme generally worked as follows. First, the Fraud Ring caused pop-up windows to appear on victims’ computers. The pop-up windows claimed, falsely, that a virus had infected the victims’ computers. The pop-up windows directed the victims to call a particular telephone number to obtain technical support. In at least some instances, the pop-up windows threatened victims that, if they restarted or shut down their computer, it could “cause serious damage to the system,” including “complete data loss.” In an attempt to give the false appearance of legitimacy, in some instances the pop-up windows included, without authorization, the corporate logo of a well-known, legitimate technology company. In fact, no virus had infected victims’ computers, and the technical support phone numbers in the pop-up windows were not associated with the legitimate technology company. Rather, these representations were false and were designed to trick victims into paying the Fraud Ring to “fix” a problem that did not exist. And while the purported “virus” was a hoax, the pop-up windows themselves did cause various victims’ computers to completely “freeze,” thereby preventing these victims from accessing the data and files in their computer—which caused some victims to call the phone number listed in the pop-up windows. In exchange for victims’ payment of several hundred or thousand dollars (depending on the precise “service” victims purchased), the purported technicians remotely accessed the victim’s computers and ran an anti-virus tool, which is free and available on the Internet.

PONMARAN was an India-based leader of the Fraud Ring. Among other things, PONMARAN managed a call center in India that was used to provide purported computer repair services to victims of the scheme. PONMARAN also recruited co-conspirators in the U.S. to register fraudulent corporate entities and open bank accounts that were used to receive fraud proceeds from victims of the scheme. PONMARAN also laundered fraud proceeds in multiple ways, including by directing co-conspirators to wire fraud proceeds to accounts in India and the U.S.

Outcome:

Defendant was found guilty and sentenced to seven years in prison and three years of supervised release and forfeiture of $6,110,884.51.

Plaintiff's Experts:

Defendant's Experts:

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