5,000 Indians in Cambodia, forced into cyber scams; MHA takes note

5,000 Indians in Cambodia, forced into cyber scams; MHA takes note

Over 5,000 Indians are trapped in Cambodia, where they are allegedly being held against their will and forced to carry out cyber frauds on people back home. The government estimates that the fraudsters have allegedly duped people of at least Rs 500 crore in India over the past six months.

Earlier this month, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) held a meeting with officials of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (Meity), the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C) and other security experts to draw up a strategy to rescue the Indians trapped in Cambodia.

“The agenda of their meeting was to discuss the organised racket and bring back those who are trapped there. Data shows that Rs 500 crore has been lost (to cyber fraud originating in Cambodia) in India in the last six months,” the source said, adding that the investigation by Central agencies has so far revealed that agents were trapping people, mostly those from the southern part of the country, and sending them to Cambodia on the pretext of data entry jobs before forcing them to carry out cyber frauds.

The source said those trapped in Cambodia were forced to scam people back in India and, in some cases, extort money by pretending to be law enforcement officials and saying that they had found some suspicious materials in their parcels.

So far, three people from Bengaluru who were trapped in Cambodia have been brought back to India.

The matter came to light after the Rourkela Police in Odisha busted a cyber-crime syndicate on December 30 last year, arresting eight people who were allegedly involved in taking people to Cambodia.

Sharing details of the Rourkela Police’s operation, an officer said the case was based on the complaint of a senior Central government officer who had been duped of around Rs 70 lakh. “We arrested eight persons from different parts of the country and we have prima facie evidence against multiple people who are involved in the scam. We issued Look Out Circulars against 16 people, following which the Bureau of Immigration this week detained two persons, Harish Kurapati and Naga Venkata Sowjanya Kurapati, at the Hyderabad airport while they were returning from Cambodia,” the officer said.

Dr Arathi Krishna, Deputy Chairman of the Non-Resident Indian Forum of the Government of Karnataka (NRIFK), told The Indian Express that three from the state trapped in Cambodia were rescued with the help of the MEA. “Our organisation was approached by their family members and they informed us that they went to work as data entry operators, but were forced to carry out cyber scams. Our organisation coordinated with the MEA and the Indian embassy in Cambodia to bring them back,” she said, adding that the three rescued persons told them that there are around 200 more people from the region who are trapped in Cambodia.

One of the rescued men, Stephen, told The Indian Express, “An agent in Mangaluru offered me a data entry job in Cambodia. I have an ITI degree and did some computer courses during Covid. There were three of us, including someone called Babu Rao from Andhra. At the immigration, the agent mentioned that we were going on a tourist visa, which raised my suspicion. In Cambodia, we were taken to an office space, where they held an interview and the two of us cleared it. They tested our typing speeds etc. It’s only later that we got to know that our job involved looking for profiles on Facebook and identifying people who can be scammed. The team was Chinese, but there was a Malaysian who translated their instructions to us in English.”

Talking about his daily schedule, Stephen said, “We had to create fake social media accounts with photographs of women sourced from different platforms. But we were told to be careful while picking these photos. So a South Indian girl’s profile would be used to trap someone in the North so that it did not raise any suspicion. We had targets and if we didn’t meet those, they would not give us food or allow us into our rooms. Finally, after a month and a half, I contacted my family and they took the help of some local politicians to speak to the embassy,” he said.

Rourkela Sub Divisional Police Officer Upasana Padhi told The Indian Express that the accused were agents who took men — potential scamsters — to Cambodia on the pretext of jobs. “But once they land in Cambodia, they are made to join these companies that indulge in fraud. The companies take away the passports of these men and make them work 12 hours a day. If anybody refuses to do the work that is asked of him, he is tortured by way of physical assaults, electric shocks, solitary confinement, etc. Many Indians who are not willing to engage in such scams are trapped there. We are trying to identify them, contact them and try to bring them back to India through proper channels,” Padhi said.

Talking about the nature of the scam, the officer said the men were initially made to join a “scamming company” in Phnom Penh in April 2023.

There, the scamsters were forced to pose as women on dating apps and chat with their potential targets. “After some time, the scamster would convince his target to invest in cryptocurrency trading. This way, many people were duped in India,” Padhi said.

According to the Rourkela Police, in October 2023, the agents got the men to join another company which focused on investment scams. “This company lured people to invest in fake stocks. They also created a fake online app,” the officer said.

“We have also gathered critical information regarding the location of the fraud companies, their operatives, their working style and their management hierarchy. We have identified three key high-level operatives of Indian origin and one high-level operative who is of Nepalese origin. We intend to take the help of Interpol to arrest key players in this scam,” Padhi added.

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