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A Port St. Lucie man was arrested and accused of fraudulently stealing tens of thousands of dollars from elderly people around the country.

Maninder Bawa is charged with two felony counts of fraud.

According to Detective Jean Valentin of the Port St. Lucie police, the investigation began in April of 2021 when a woman in San Diego was working on her computer.

She said the computer suddenly froze.

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“The victim alleged that a pop-up notification came on to her computer, notifying her that it was compromised, to call a certain number,” Valentin said.

The police report said the woman called that number and wound up talking to Bawa, who said he was with a company called Computer Solutions of PSL and could fix her computer if she paid monthly for his security software.

“About a month or two later, she gets called by the same individual notifying her that she is now in debt with the company, and now she has to pay a big fine,” Valentin said.

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The big fine, according to the police report, was nearly $6,000.

A few months later, the victim was told she owed $28,000

In all, the victim told police she was scammed out of about $37,000.

She paid some of that money by check to a PO Box in Port St. Lucie.

That’s why along with the Florida Attorney General’s office, Valentin started investigating, starting with the bank account for Computer Solutions PSL.

“Once I started looking into the account, I started noticing a lot more checks,” Valentin said. “And they were all very, very similar.”

Valentin said the checks were from elderly people all around the country, all believing they had to pay to get their computers to work again.

He said the grand total was about $80,000 from 25 different victims.

Most of those victims have not returned Valentin’s calls.

“Unfortunately, they were embarrassed and ashamed of the fact they were scammed,” Valentin said. “They didn’t really tell anyone.”

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Valentin said his investigation revealed Bawa used what’s known as a phishing scam to get the victims to click on a link and give him access to their computers.

He then used that access to freeze the computers and only fix them for exorbitant fees.

Valentin’s advice: don’t click on anything unless you know exactly what it is.

“If it’s online, always question it,” he said. “It’s a possibility that it could be fraud.”

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