The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Thursday conducted searches at multiple locations in Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan in connection with a case against six private companies which allegedly sent pop-ups to personal computers with bogus warnings about serious technical issues.
The pop-ups prompted many users to install unwanted programmes and tricked them into paying online for resolving the fictitious problems.
The ED probe is based on a First Information Report registered in September last year by the Central Bureau of Investigation, which had also searched premises of the companies and the associated individuals in Delhi, Noida, Mainpuri, Gurugram, Faridabad and Jaipur.
The agency identified the accused companies as Softwill Infotech Private Limited, Innovana Thinklabs Limited, Benovellient Technologies Private Limited, Systweak Software Private Limited, Saburi TLC Worldwide Services and Saburi Global Services.
It is alleged that they targeted the Microsoft Windows systems through the bogus messages about malware infection and other technical glitches. “The employees of these companies allegedly advised the victims to install certain anti-malwares or anti-virus, which are essentially PUPs (Potentially Unwanted Programmes),” the CBI had said.
The victims were allegedly given the option of activating these unwanted programmes by paying fee online or by calling a customer support number that was advertised in the interface of these programmes.
