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Las Vegas woman sentenced in $10M fraud scheme targeting seniors

Updated January 21, 2022 - 5:04 pm

A Las Vegas woman was sentenced Friday to more than eight years in prison for her role in a $10 million fraud scheme that targeted older adults, the Justice Department said.

Romana Leyva, 38, pleaded guilty in June to leading a fraud ring from 2015 to 2018 that remotely accessed elderly victims’ computers and convinced them to pay for support services that they did not need and never received, according to a press release from the department. The scheme exploited about 7,500 people in the U.S. and Canada and made more than $10 million.

People would see a pop-up window on their screen that falsely claimed a virus had infected their computer. They were directed to call a number for tech support, and in some cases were warned that shutting down or restarting their computer would cause damage to their system.

In New York on Friday, U.S. District Judge Paul A. Crotty sentenced Leyva to 100 months in prison, three years of supervised release, forfeiture of $4.6 million and restitution of $2.7 million.

Contact David Wilson at dwilson@reviewjournal.com. Follow @davidwilson_RJ on Twitter.

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