I was a fool of technical support, and I've earned millions by defrauding the elderly • The Register

A man pleaded guilty in America to a single crime charge for his role in a $ 3 million technical support scam operation.

Bishap Mittal, 24, of Charlotte, North Carolina, has been charged with conspiring to obtain a computer protected by a federal court, in a federal court located in the west of Florida. US state. A conviction date has not yet been set.

Earlier this month, Mittal had been indicted for his role in managing Capstone Technologies, a US-based company that, through a call center located in New York. Delhi, India, ran an extremely lucrative scam. According to prosecutors' files [PDF]Mittal and an anonymous coconspirator led the activity, including managing bank accounts and creating pseudonyms for the organization.

The scam itself involved the use of pop-up messages on web pages or in adware to scare victims by calling an badistance number.

"Inopportune advertisements were a central part of the conspiracy technical badistance scam," Justice Department lawyers said Wednesday.

"The fake pop-up windows popped up suddenly on victims' computers as they froze their screens, prompting them to contact Capstone Technologies at a number listed in the ad."

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Calls for badistance would be routed to the phone bank in India, where savvy operators would remotely connect to a branded computer and, after purporting to run a security scan on the machine. , would lie on the infection by malicious program, then would press the unknown purchase of fake technical support and system security protection.

While a seemingly mediocre and standard support scam, the operation allowed its owner to win seven digits in ill-gotten parts.

The DoJ noted that many of the victims were elderly people, who would be forced to spend between $ 200 and $ 2,400 at a time for shit they did not need. The operation was a disappointing one for the duo and it is estimated that Capstone Technologies was able to save about $ 3 million from 2014 to 2018 when it burst.

Mittal himself had little resistance to the charges, agreeing last week to plead guilty to conspiracy to gain access to a protected computer, just two days after prosecutors filed their case. initial.

The DoJ did not specify when it would attempt to try the anonymous co-conspirator of Mittal in this case. ®

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