Thousands of Indians are believed to be stranded in several Southeast Asian countries, where they are reportedly forced into labor as “cyber slaves,” according to a report by the Indian Express.

They are being compelled to engage in illegal activities such as money laundering, cryptocurrency scams, and “romance frauds” in nations including Cambodia, Thailand, Myanmar, and Vietnam.

 Indian immigration data shows that nearly 30,000 of the 73,138 Indians who visited these countries on tourist visas between January 2022 and May 2024 have not yet returned.

Reports indicate that people across India are being lured by scammers who instruct them to create fake social media accounts, often using photos of women, to convince others to invest money.

Some men rescued from these scams by the Indian government earlier this year told the Indian Express that they were offered “lucrative” jobs by agents before being sent to these countries, where their passports were subsequently seized.

Most of the Indians reportedly trapped abroad are in their 20s and 30s, and over a third come from Punjab, Maharashtra, and Tamil Nadu. The report stated that approximately 70% of those who have not returned had travelled to Thailand.

The issue came to public attention last year when Odisha police cracked down on a cybercrime syndicate linked to Cambodia.

Several individuals facilitating trips to that country were arrested after law enforcement was alerted by a federal government employee who had fallen victim to cyber fraud, according to NDTV.

In April, the Indian government announced it had rescued 250 citizens from Cambodia, all of whom had become victims of cyber gangs running “fraudulent schemes,” the Ministry of External Affairs reported.

In May, New Delhi established a high-level inter-ministerial panel to address the issue and identify systemic loopholes. The panel has directed regional governments to conduct ground-level verifications and gather details about those allegedly trapped in Southeast Asia.

The authorities have also instructed telecom operators to share data on Indian mobile numbers using roaming services in Hong Kong, Cambodia, Laos, the Philippines, and Myanmar. Furthermore, telecom companies have been asked to block incoming international “spoofed calls” displaying Indian mobile numbers, as such calls reportedly account for 35% of incoming international communications.

South-east Asia’s industrial-size scam centres are a national security threat to the countries they are based in, as well as to the countries they target, reported the Straits Times.

The criminal organisations running these centres, where thousands are lured to work as forced labour stealing billions of dollars from victims worldwide, originate mostly from China and, in Asia’s case, are physically located mainly in Laos, Cambodia, and Myanmar, but also across the region in other countries.

According to a report released in May by the US Institute of Peace (USIP), scam centres operating out of Myanmar, Cambodia, and Laos accounted for US$39 billion  in stolen funds, as of the end of 2023.

There is mounting concern among law enforcement authorities in China and other countries regarding the impact of this transnational organised crime, which amounts to a significant share of the GDP of some countries such as Laos, and features actual territory controlled by armed groups.

While Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos are the epicentre of the criminal industry, such crime operates out of other places as well.

In the Philippines, in March, hundreds of people were rescued from a love scam or “pig-butchering” centre some 100km north of Manila which was masquerading as an online gambling firm, authorities said. Police said they rescued 383 Filipinos, 202 Chinese, and 73 other foreign nationals.

Employees at these scam centres are often lured or trafficked there from low-employment countries like India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, the Philippines, and as far as African countries, to work essentially as forced labour. Some scam centres house thousands.

Experts say sporadic crackdowns, of the type recently seen in Laos’ notorious Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone (GTSEZ), are often choreographed ahead of time, enabling kingpins to evade them.

Scam centres have targeted people in over 100 countries around the world, with the average victim losing more or less all of their assets, as Jason Tower, Myanmar Country Director at USIP, told the Asian Insider Podcast.

Losses have ranged from US$100,000 to US$300,000 and sometimes as much as US$50 million, Tower said.

“This is a massive wealth transfer to malign actors in Southeast Asia – actors who are undermining governance, corrupt actors... who also have close ties to militia groups,” he said. “You’ve got people around the world who are targeted, and countries are not able to keep their nationals safe from these scams.

“Secondly, these are forced labour compounds. You’ve got hundreds of thousands of people, according to the UN, according to USIP’s own research... who have been tricked or deceived or trafficked into these large scam compounds,” he said.

“In order to imprison people inside the compounds, generally the compounds need to be securitised. Many of them are located along borders, often in places where you have very weak states or you have really no strong or fragmented state sovereignty,” he added.

On Thailand’s borders, for instance, scam compounds are very well guarded by the Myanmar military’s border guard force, and in other places like Laos by well-armed private security forces, he noted. - agencies