Mumbai: Between 2022 and 2024, the Indian Mission in Cambodia facilitated the rescue and release of 1,167 Indian nationals. A few months ago, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) had reported instances of dubious firms using fake job offers – mostly spread through social media – to lure Indians to Southeast Asian countries, including Cambodia. The victims were then forced to carry out cybercrimes and other illegal activities from scam centres operating in these countries.
Last year, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) registered cases involving several Indians trafficked to Myawaddy, Myanmar, by human trafficking networks.
These persons were promised high-paying jobs such as customer support or data entry roles in countries like Myanmar, Laos, and Cambodia. Once there, they were coerced into working in cyber scam centres run by Chinese and Indian syndicates.
Victims who refused to comply were subjected to severe punishments, including physical torture and electrocution. Many remain trapped in the Myawaddy region. The CBI also found that some traffickers based in Chandigarh were involved in sending Indian nationals to Myanmar under the pretext of offering jobs in Thailand.
In another case, a man from Palghar was trafficked to Thailand in February last year on the promise of a computer operator or accountant job in a gaming zone. He was later taken to Laos, where he was forced to operate fake social media profiles to cheat people in India, Canada, and the USA through cryptocurrency scams. There, he met another Indian victim from Mumbai.
The Palghar victim eventually escaped from Laos, reached Bangkok, and returned to India in April 2024. He told authorities that agents had duped him of Rs1.4 lakh by promising him a job in Thailand, only to traffic him to a cyber scam centre in Laos.
