A Huntsville man was one of eight people recently charged in connection with an international scheme to bill $10 million in fraudulent market survey data, according to an announcement from Acting U.S. Attorney Jay McCormack.
Each of the following individuals has been indicted on one count of Conspiracy to Commit Wire Fraud:
- Frank Hayden, 57, of Evanston, Illinois.
- Daniel Harriman, 38, of Huntsville.
- Frank Nappo, 55, of Rye, New Hampshire.
- Ryan Stoudt, 38, of Dallas, Texas.
- Katarina Grubljesic, 46, of Belgrade, Serbia.
- Strahinja Grubljesic, 38, of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
- Archie Ignacio, 46, of Verona, New Jersey.
- Arvind Iyer, a/k/a S. Aravindan, of Delhi, India.
In 2014, Hayden, Harriman, and Nappo, who were senior leaders at U.S. market research company Op4G, decided to increase company revenues by generating fabricated survey data, according to the recently unsealed indictment.
To execute the scheme, some of the defendants recruited “ants”, who pretended to be legitimate survey takers but instead were paid a nominal fee for completing surveys that produced fraudulent market research data…