The Indian government said it has rescued and repatriated about 250 Cambodian citizens who were imprisoned and forced to commit online fraud.
The Indian nationals “were attracted by the employment opportunities in the country but were forced to work illegally online,” the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said in a statement, adding that the MEA had rescued them over the past three months. 75 people.
It also said it was working with “Cambodian authorities and Indian agencies to target those responsible for these fraudulent schemes”.
Previously, the “Indian Express” reported that organized criminal gangs have forced more than 5,000 Indians stranded in Cambodia to become “cyber slaves”. These criminal gangs defraud people in India and in some cases impersonate law enforcement agencies for extortion. money. .
The report also follows earlier disclosures by Interpol that described the situation as an industrial-scale fraud fueled by human trafficking.
Among them was an accountant from Telangana who “was lured to Southeast Asia and forced to participate in an online fraud scheme under inhumane conditions.” He was later released after a ransom was paid.
In another example highlighted by The Indian Express, a rescued man who was recruited for a data entry job by an agent in the southern Indian city of Mangaluru was asked to create fake social media accounts with photos of women and use them to To reach people.
“We had goals, and if we didn’t meet those goals, they wouldn’t give us food or allow us into our rooms,” said the man, identified only as Stephen.
Similar efforts have been made by China and the Philippines to rescue hundreds of Filipinos, Chinese and other foreigners who were trapped and forced to engage in criminal activities in an alleged pig-slaughter scam.
These schemes often begin with scammers adopting false identities to lure potential victims into investing in non-existent crypto businesses designed to steal their funds. Scammers are known to gain the trust of their targets under the illusion of a romantic relationship.
Chainaanalysis said in a report published in February 2024 that cryptocurrency wallets linked to a pig slaughtering ring operating out of Myanmar recorded nearly $100 million in cryptocurrency inflows, with some funds estimated to include payments made by these families. Workers trafficked for ransom.
“The brutal conditions that trafficking victims face in compounds also bring additional urgency to tackling romance scams – not only are consumers defrauded of hundreds of millions of dollars each year, but the gangs behind these scams are also perpetuating a humanitarian crisis. ,” said the blockchain analytics company.
News about the rescue efforts also follows Check Point’s research that threat actors are exploiting a feature in Ethereum called CREATE2 to bypass security measures and gain unauthorized access to funds. Scam Sniffer disclosed details of the scam in November 2023.
The key to this technique is to use CREATE2 to generate a new “temporary” wallet address that has no history of reported criminal activity, allowing threat actors to conduct illegal transactions to that address after the victim approves the contract and circumvents flagging such addresses. Protect.
“The attack method includes tricking users into approving smart contract transactions that have not yet been deployed, allowing cybercriminals to subsequently deploy malicious contracts and steal cryptocurrency,” the Israeli company said.
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