Full article available at The Daily Mirror
“With cold callers based overseas who hide behind a smokescreen of lies, this is a rampant con that I thought might never result in a culprit being held to account.
So what a delight to see a Microsoft scammer end up in a British court.
Mohammed Khalid Jamil ran a gang that managed to turn over £1million a year by phoning people at home and convincing them that their computers had a virus which urgently needed tackling.
Despite using cold callers in India and operating out of Dubai “for tax reasons”, the crook was caught when experts in online crime followed the money trail to companies he’d set up in the UK.
Now the 34-year-old, who also lives in Luton, Beds, has been given a suspended jail sentence after being nailed by the National Trading Standards eCrime Team.
“This is a landmark case, as we believe it may be the first ever successful prosecution of someone involved in the Microsoft scam in the UK,” said Lord Toby Harris, chairman of the National Trading Standards Board.
“It’s an important turning point for UK consumers who have been plagued by this scam, or variants of it, for several years.
“Many have succumbed to it, parting with significant sums of money, their computers have been compromised and their personal details have been put at risk.
“Now that one of the many individuals who’ve been operating this scam has been brought to justice, it’s a stark warning to anyone else
still doing it, that they can be caught and will be prosecuted.”
Jamil’s callers told their victims that their computers would crash unless a virus was dealt with.
They claimed to be Microsoft technicians and would remotely take over the computer and then charge for curing the problem by installing free anti-virus software.”