Regulators from five countries joined together in an operation to crack down on a series of companies orchestrating one of the most widespread Internet scams of the decade.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and other international regulatory authorities today said they shut down a global criminal network that bilked tens of thousands of consumers by pretending to be tech support providers.

FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz, speaking during a press conference with a Microsoft executive and regulators from Australia and Canada, said 14 companies and 17 individuals were targeted in the investigation. In the course of the crackdown, U.S. authorities already have frozen $188,000 in assets, but Leibowitz said that would increase over time thanks to international efforts.

Global phone support scam Scammers would use remote desktop tools to access the victim's computer. Read more: Phone scammers target PC users with phony virus reports

"These so-called tech support scams are the latest variation of scareware," Leibowitz said.

English-speaking consumers in the United States, Canada, Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, and the U.K. were targeted in the global scam. Most of the scammers were based in India, but some also came from the U.S. and U.K.

The scam involved cold callers who claimed to work for major technology companies, such as Microsoft or Google, and who told consumers they had viruses on their PCs. The callers would attempt to dupe users into giving them remote access to their computers, locking the user out while attempting to "fix" the malware that the scammer claimed was on the machine.

In some cases, ads were placed on Google to lure in unwitting consumers when they searched for their PC's tech support phone number. And many of the people called were on do-not-call registries.

Windows PC users were targeted seemingly indiscriminately and charged between $49 to $450 to remove the non-existent malware that the supposed tech company representative claimed was on the PC.

Leibowitz said the frozen assets could be distributed to victims once they are identified, but he warned it's rare to "get 100 percent back in restitution." The FTC said that more importantly, it should be able to stop the scams going forward.

It is thought there could be upwards of tens of thousands of victims worldwide in total across six countries, and the FTC warned that the figure could be "significantly higher."

The scammers attempted to avoid detection by using virtual offices, including more than 80 different domain names and 130 different phone numbers. Officials said many of the scammers from India were using U.S. carriers, and the carriers agreed to block the numbers.