US prosecutors on Friday unveiled an indictment against three men for engaging in a multimillion-dollar scheme to defraud consumers by charging unsuspecting mobile phone users for unwanted text messages.

An indictment filed in federal court in Manhattan charged Fraser Thompson, an ex-executive at mobile aggregation company Mobile Messenger, as well as Eugeni Tsvetnenko and Francis Assifuah, who authorities say ran digital content providers.

The trio were added to a pre-existing case against five other people and accused of participating in an “auto-subscribing” scheme to charge cell phone customers monthly fees for unsolicited, recurring text messages without their consent.

Thompson was arrested on Friday in California. Tsvetnenko lives in Australia and has not been arrested, while Assifuah had already been arrested in April. The trio face charges including wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering.

Lawyers for Thompson and Assifuah did not respond to requests for comment. A lawyer for Tsvetnenko could not be identified.

According to court papers, Thompson was the executive vice-president of operations at Mobile Messenger.