A statement from the office of the acting US attorney for the state of New Hampshire said the individuals charged were each indicted on one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, and included US residents Frank Hayden, Daniel Harriman, Frank Nappo, Ryan Stoudt and Archie Ignacio, as well as Katarina Grubljesic of Serbia, Strahinja Grubljesic of Brazil and Arvind Iyer, AKA S. Aravindan, of India.

The recently unsealed indictment centres on US market research companies Op4G and Slice, and alleges that in 2014, Hayden, Harriman and Nappo, who were senior leaders at Op4G, decided to increase company revenues by generating fabricated survey data.

The scheme apparently included some defendants recruiting so-called “ants” who pretended to be legitimate survey takers, but instead were paid a nominal fee for completing surveys that produced fraudulent market research data.

According to the indictment, some of the defendants served as “ants” and took surveys themselves, receiving payment.

Around 2018, the fraudulent survey operation was moved to a new company, which became Slice, and the allegations claim that defendants exchanged instructions with each other and the “ants” to evade detection.

These instructions included directions on how to answer survey screener questions, provided parameters on how long “ants” should remain on surveys and encouraged the use of virtual private network services to conceal real IP addresses.

Hayden, Harriman, Nappo, Stoudt and Ignacio will appear in federal court at a later date.