A recent CBI FIR report has suggested that an international crime network is involved in trafficking people from India to places like Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar. The CBI alleged that Indians are forced to commit cybercrimes at "Chinese control scam centres".
Rajesh Kumar, Chief Executive Officer, 14C said that they were able to zero in on the 'China connection' as most of the web applications used for cybercrimes were written in Mandarin.
"Around 7,000 cyber-related complaints on an average are registered with the National Cybercrime Reporting Portal (NCRP) daily and most of the frauds have origin in three Southeast Asian countries -- Cambodia, Myanmar and Laos," he told The Indian Express.
The publication reported that over 5000 Indians are suspected to be stuck in Cambodia and are being forced to commit cyber fraud crimes.
The FIR said that the international network of human traffickers first offer educated Indians jobs in countries like Thailand, Dubai and Bangkok. Once they are trapped in the scam and reach the foreign country, they are then trafficked and sent to Southeast Asian countries and later forced to work as 'cyber criminals'.
The FIR carried out a case study where they revealed one of the victims' stories. Saddam Sheikh from Maharashtra's Palghar fell prey to this when he received WhatsApp calls from two people who offered him a job in Thailand, after which he visited their office and met the owner and the agent of the Delhi-based company that offered the job.
He was asked to pay Rs 1.4 lakh for the visa, as reported by the publication.
The FIR then stated that he was asked to reach Kolkata airport to get the documents before heading to Bangkok on February 10.
"At Bangkok airport, he met another agent who took money from him and took him to Chiang Rai immigration from where he was taken to Laos, where he met another agent, who is a native of Sikkim, and he was taken to Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone where he was introduced to other Chinese agents as well as Indian agents," the report read.
Saddam was then forced to do cybercrimes, where he was told to cheat people from India, Canada and US on social media platforms through bogus cryptocurrency schemes.
However, he managed to escape and returned to India on April 19.