The Department of Justice has announced the arrest of a man who ran a $10 million tech support fraud scheme.

Vinoth Ponmaran, a 34-year-old Indian national, was arrested and accused of targeting at least 7,500 victims in a multimillion-dollar tech support fraud scheme. Many of Ponmaran’s victims were vulnerable individuals like the elderly. According to officials, Ponmaran would target his victims by selling them computer support services that they either did not need or did not actually receive.

Officials described this scheme as sophisticated in nature, enabling Ponmaran and his conspirators to collect over $10 million in revenue. Officials detail that Ponmaran was the leader of this criminal scheme known as the “Fraud Ring” which was based in both the United States and India.

As part of the scheme, victims were targeted and received relentless pop-up windows on their computer screens. These pop-ups falsely claimed that there was a virus on the computer. The pop-up windows directed the victims to call a phone number that would then connect them to a technician who would remove the malware. In reality, the computers were not infected with malware, and the pop-ups were simply a fraudulent tactic to lure unsuspecting victims into paying hundreds and even thousands for tech support services that they did not need.

In some instances, the pop-up windows threatened users that if they did not follow through with calling tech support, they could risk “complete data loss” or that “serious damage to the system” might occur.

To further convince victims that the pop-up windows were legitimate, it was common for logos of popular tech companies to be used alongside the contact information. With these tactics, Ponmaran and his co-conspirators were able to successfully lure in victims, especially those most vulnerable.

Vinoth Ponmaran is also accused of being the leader of the Fraud Ring’s Indian operation. He is accused of managing a call center located in India that helped fuel the fraud through the U.S. and Canada.

Vinoth Ponmaran Is facing charges including one count of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Each count carries with it a maximum sentence of 20 years behind bars.

Earlier this year, two co-conspirators who worked alongside Vinoth Ponmaran were also arrested, charged, and sentenced. Romana Leyva was sentenced to 100 months behind bars and ordered to pay a forfeiture of just over $4.5 million and restitution of $2.7 million.

Ariful Haque was also arrested and sentenced to 100 months behind bars and was ordered to pay a forfeiture of $38,886.00 and restitution of $470,627.

According to data compiled by Seedspark, while the number of tech support scams has continued to increase over the past couple of years, the number of individuals who fall victim to these scams has declined.

This is largely due to heightened awareness being brought to these tech criminals and their antics. Despite this, vulnerable populations, primarily the elderly, continue to fall victim to such scams.

Surprisingly tech-savvy young consumers including Millennials and Gen Zers are also falling victim to these scams, due to their willingness to take risks. It is estimated that one in five consumers have fallen victim to tech scams in the past year with the average victim losing roughly $200.