A pair of New York PC repair technicians have been found guilty of defrauding a customer of up to $20 million.
According to Mac World, the victim initially took his laptop in to have a virus removed, but the technicians were able to convince him that the virus was part of a wider plot involving US intelligence agencies, shady foreign nationals and the Catholic secret society Opus Dei.
The victim apparently agreed to pay the technicians $160,000 per month for 24-hour ‘protection’ but the pair also managed to defraud him of a confirmed total of $6 million, with suspected losses ranging closer to $20 million, over six years.
“These two defendants preyed upon, duped and exploited the fears of this victim with cold calculation and callousness,” said Westchester County District Attourney, Janet DiFiore. “The systematic method with which they continued the larceny over a period of more than six years is nothing short of heartless.”
The repair technicians face a sentence of up to 25 years in prison.
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