CBI and Delhi Police help FBI bust multimillion-dollar tech support scam

Washington, December 17

Delhi Police and Central Bureau of Investigation have helped the FBI bust a major trans-national scam that duped thousands of Americans, mostly senior citizens, of millions of dollars in about 10 years on the pretext of providing them with tech-support, a US attorney has said.

Harshad Madaan, 34, from New Delhi and Vikash Gupta, 33, from Faridabad, were arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and Delhi Police this week. The third Indian Gagan Lamba, 41, from New Delhi remains at large.

Gagan’s brother Jatin Lamba is also in police custody.

All are charged by indictment with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to commit computer fraud, and substantive violations of wire fraud and computer fraud.

US Attorney Philip R Sellinger, in a statement, thanked the CBI and the Delhi Police for their assistance in busting the trans-national tech support scam. Indian-American, Meghana Kumar, 50, pleaded guilty to the charges this week.

Jayant Bhatia, 33, of Ontario has been arrested by Canadian authorities. Kulwinder Singh, 34, of Richmond Hill, New York, has been charged with conspiracy to commit 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 indictment alleges that all six Indians and persons of Indian origin used access to personal computers to run a high-tech extortion scheme on a global scale.

Sellinger said they frequently preyed upon senior citizens and scared them into paying for unnecessary and useless computer repair services.