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.
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.
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.”
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.
“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.
1 Comment
SS:
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.
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.
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.”
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.
“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.