United States v. Sergey Kamratov, et al.

From approximately 2006 through June 2011, it is alleged that Defendants operated an international scheme to sell fraudulent computer security software known as “scareware.” Scareware is malicious software that poses as legitimate computer security software and purports to detect a variety of threats on the affected computer that do not actually exist. Users are then informed that they must purchase what they are told is anti-virus software in order to repair their computers. The users were then barraged with aggressive and disruptive notifications until they supplied their credit or debit card number to pay for the “anti-virus” product, which was, in fact, fake. An estimated 960,000 computer users were victimized by this scareware scheme, leading to an estimated $71 million in actual losses.

Familiar names: Sergey Kamratrov, Dymtro Volokitin, Victor Mauze, Yevgen Fatyeyev, Mikael Patrick Sallnert