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

Indians are being lured with fake job offers promising high salaries, only to be trapped in Southeast Asia’s cyber slavery and cryptocurrency fraud rings.

According to reports from local media, tens of thousands of Indian nationals are trapped as cyber slaves in Southeast Asia, where they are coerced into participating in online scams, including cryptocurrency fraud, phishing scams, and pig butchering scams, often targeting individuals back in India.

In some cases, the victims are also forced to impersonate law enforcement officials to extort funds from unsuspecting Indians via drugs-in-parcel scams.

Around 45% of cyber crimes targeting Indians are estimated to originate from Southeast Asia, the report added.

Government intervention and rescue efforts

The victims, mostly young Indians, are lured by fake job postings offering attractive salaries for IT and data entry positions. Upon arrival in countries like Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar, their passports are confiscated, and they are taken to guarded compounds where they work under inhumane circumstances.

A March report claimed that Indians had lost at least inr 500 crores (roughly $60 million) to these operations between October 2023 and March 2024.

The severity of the issue has prompted the Indian government to initiate rescue efforts by collaborating with international organizations, NGOs, and local authorities in Southeast Asia to repatriate trapped citizens and dismantle the cyber slavery networks.

As reported by crypto.news, on Aug. 14 Indian youths were rescued from scam centers operating in the Bokeo province of Laos. At the time, the Indian Embassy in Laos cautioned that employment on a ‘Visa on Arrival’ basis is illegal and urged residents to verify the credentials of recruiting agents before accepting job offers in Laos.

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

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

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

Beyond crypto scams

Past investigations reveal that these crypto-related cyber scam networks often extend beyond financial fraud, with potential links to global human trafficking and exploitation rings.

In 2023, Bloomberg journalist Zeke Faux uncovered what initially appeared to be a scam involving the stablecoin Tether but led to the discovery of a massive human trafficking operation in Cambodia tied to Chinese criminal networks. Victims were held in compounds like “Chinatown” in Sihanoukville, subject to brutal conditions, physical abuse, and forced drug use to keep them compliant.

The severity of such cases has drawn the attention of international authorities, including the U.S. Department of the Treasury, which recently sanctioned a Cambodian senator with links to cyber-scam centers.

The sanctions targeted not only the senator but also his conglomerate and associated entities, all of which were involved in exploiting trafficked workers for crypto-related fraud.