Thousands of Indians trapped in Southeast Asia’s crypto fraud rings

Indians are lured by fake job offers promising high salaries, but they are falling prey to Southeast Asia’s cyber slavery and cryptocurrency fraud rings.

According to local media reports, tens of thousands of Indian citizens are trapped as cyber slaves in Southeast Asia; Here they are forced to participate in online scams, including cryptocurrency scams, phishing scams, and pig slaughter scams that often target individuals in India. .

In some cases, victims are forced to impersonate law enforcement officials to extort money from unsuspecting Indians through parcel drug fraud.

The report estimates that nearly 45 percent of cyber crimes targeting Indians originate from Southeast Asia.

Government response and recovery efforts

The victims, mostly young Indians, are lured by fake job postings offering attractive salaries for IT and data entry positions. When they arrive in countries such as Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar, their passports are confiscated and they are taken to secure settlements where they work under inhumane conditions.

A report published in March claimed that Indians lost at least Rs 500 crore (about $60 million) on these operations between October 2023 and March 2024.

The severity of the problem has led the Indian government to launch rescue efforts in collaboration with international organizations, NGOs, and local authorities in Southeast Asia to repatriate stranded citizens and dismantle cyber-slavery networks.

As reported by crypto.news, on August 14, Indian youths were rescued from fraud centers operating in Bokeo province of Laos. At that time, the Indian Embassy in Laos had warned that working on a ‘Visa on Arrival’ basis was illegal and urged residents to verify the credentials of recruitment agencies before accepting job offers in Laos.

But government records show that nearly 30,000 Indians who traveled to Southeast Asian countries such as Cambodia, Thailand, Myanmar and Vietnam between January 2022 and May 2024 did not return.

Among other initiatives of the Indian government, an inter-ministerial panel including representatives from various government departments is working to dismantle cyber slavery networks and ensure the safe return of stranded Indians.

Meanwhile, telecom operators in the country have been ordered to block fraudulent international calls, monitor suspicious roaming activity in Southeast Asia and disconnect millions of sim cards allegedly linked to fraud.

Beyond crypto scams

Past research reveals that these crypto-related cyber fraud networks often go beyond financial fraud and have potential connections to global human trafficking and exploitation rings.

In 2023, Bloomberg journalist Zeke Fake uncovered what initially appeared to be a scam involving the stablecoin Tether but led to the discovery of a major human trafficking operation in Cambodia tied to Chinese criminal networks. Victims were held in settlements such as “Chinatown” in Sihanoukville; They were subjected to brutal conditions, physical abuse, and forced drug use to ensure their compliance.

The seriousness of such cases has attracted the attention of international authorities, including the US Treasury Department, which recently imposed sanctions on a Cambodian senator with ties to cyber fraud centers.

The sanctions targeted not only the senator, but also his conglomerate and affiliates that exploited trafficked workers for crypto-related fraud.