NEW YORK (1010 WINS) -- A Queens former bank manager was sentenced to a year in prison for running a predatory tech support scheme that preyed on older people who weren’t computer savvy, the Department of Justice announced on Wednesday.
Ariful Haque, 36, made over $600,000 from more than 100 people by sending pop-up windows onto victims’ computers that falsely claimed their devices had been infected with a virus.
The pop-ups would direct the victims to call the fraudster and his associates, who would then charge them to “fix” their computers.
Haque and his co-conspirators would run free online antivirus software and stop sending the pop-up windows after the mark paid up, giving the illusion that they had succeeded in fixing the computer.
“This fraud scheme deceived scores of victims across the country into paying hundreds or thousands of dollars to the perpetrators for computer support services they did not need,” said U.S. Attorney Damian Williams. “Thanks to our partners at Homeland Security Investigations, this scheme has been dismantled and another participant has been sentenced to prison.”
Haque even registered a tech support company in pursuit of his scheme, which ran from November 2017 to June 2019.
In addition to serving one year in prison, Haque must serve three years of supervised release and pay over $500,000 in forfeiture and restitution.
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