Tech Support Scam Assistants Plead Guilty
Two men, Adam Young, 42, and Harrison Gevirtz, 33, are facing years in prison for providing services to a tech-support fraud scheme in India that stole millions of dollars from American citizens. They pleaded guilty to misprision of a felony after being accused of offering phone numbers, call routing services, call tracking tools, and call forwarding services to India-based telemarketing fraudsters.
The two were key cogs in a scheme targeting the elderly and disabled with fake pop-up messages that tricked people into thinking their devices had been infected with malware. Victims were told to call phone numbers that were routed to call centers in India, where scammers forcefully urged them to pay hundreds of dollars for fake technical support services.
Modus Operandi
Prosecutors said that in several instances, the technical support agents were able to remotely access victim devices and steal financial information that led to further thefts. Young and Gevirtz ran a U.S.-based tech firm called C.A. Cloud Attribution that assisted the scheme from 2016 to 2022, and they also owned a call center in Tunisia where some employees conducted tech-support fraud.
Investigators said the two learned that many of their customers were involved in fraud in 2017 but continued to provide services to them. Telephone providers and law enforcement contacted them numerous times with complaints about the tech-support fraud — but instead of reporting the scheme, the two advised the scammers on better ways to avoid detection.
These techniques included having customers use large pools of telephone numbers on their pop-up ads and having the customers regularly rotate the telephone numbers that appeared on the pop-up ads.
Young and Gevirtz also promoted the tech support fraud centers and connected the illicit businesses with others who could assist the schemes. According to Ted Docks, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Boston Division, “By their own admission, they willfully profited from telemarketing and tech support scammers, here and abroad, who preyed on the elderly, exploited the vulnerable, and drained victims of their life savings and peace of mind.”
Consequences and Future Actions
Young and Gevirtz will be sentenced on June 16. A misprision of a felony charge effectively accuses people of knowing about a felony and failing to report it. It carries a maximum sentence of three years. The Justice Department previously secured convictions of four Indian nationals and one American who were investigated by the FBI for their role in the tech support fraud scheme.
The guilty pleas are the latest effort by law enforcement and lawmakers to address the root causes of digital scams that have proliferated over the last decade, costing Americans billions of dollars each year. Several members of Congress sent a letter on Thursday urging three major telecommunications companies to strengthen their anti-scam efforts.
- U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee Chairman David Schweikert (R-AZ) and Ranking Member Maggie Hassan (D-NH) demanded detailed information from AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon about what the companies are doing to identify and curb scam calls and texts.
- Americans received 52.5 billion robocalls in 2025, and recent Federal Trade Commission studies show that texts and phone calls were some of the most common ways scammers contacted victims.
- The median losses for phone scams were $1,835, and $1,000 for text-based scams, according to the FTC.
Source: The Record