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A court ruled that Bruhaspaty Prasad, 33, worked with scam artists based at a call center in India to steal money from unsuspecting victims, a U.S. Attorney said in a news release.
Their alleged grift is one that anyone online has likely come across in recent years.
In the scam, victims would get an unsolicited phone call or a pop-up window on a website that claimed malware and viruses had infected their computer. To get rid of them, victims would need to sign up for technical support services that never materialized, the release said. The scammers pretended to work for Amazon or Microsoft to trick people into paying up. And once they paid, victims were told they would need to buy additional services at extra cost, the release continues.
Prasad and his cohorts made $1.6 million from April 2016 until September 2021, the Department of Justice said.
According to evidence presented at his trial, Prasad opened three companies in Virginia that offered fraudulent tech support services. He sent portions of the proceeds from these businesses to his co-conspirators in India, the release said.
The U.S. Attorney's Office said Amazon worked closely with investigators in this case. Scam calls and emails that claim to be from the massive online retailer are commonplace. The company offers several tips on how to spot scams.
“We have zero tolerance for impersonation scams and will continue to investigate them to hold bad actors accountable," an Amazon spokesperson told WTOP. "If customers receive communication that they think may not be from Amazon, we encourage them to report it to Amazon.”
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