283 Indians trapped in illegal jobs in Myanmar rescued, brought back-OxBig News Network

Victims of scam centres who were tricked or trafficked into working in Myanmar, stuck in limbo at a compound inside the K.K. Park, a fraud factory, and a human trafficking hub on the border with Thailand-Myanmar after a multinational crackdown on the compounds run by criminal gangs, operated by the Karen Border Guard Force in Myawaddy, Myanmar on February 26, 2025.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

An Indian Air Force aircraft on Monday (March 10, 2025) evacuated 283 Indian nationals who had fallen prey to fake job offers in Southeast Asian countries.

The victims were forced to work in fraudulent call centres operating in regions along the Myanmar-Thailand border and were subsequently made to indulge in cybercrime and other fraudulent activities.

Another Air Force aircraft is expected to evacuate more Indians on Tuesday (March 11, 2025) or Wednesday (March 12, 2025).

“Indian embassies in Myanmar and Thailand have coordinated with local authorities to secure the repatriation of 283 Indian nationals by an IAF aircraft from Mae Sot in Thailand,” the External Affairs Ministry said in a statement on Monday (March 10, 2025).

The Centre said it was making sustained efforts to secure the release and repatriation of Indian nationals lured to various Southeast Asian countries, including Myanmar, with fake job offers.

Multiple agencies, including the National Investigation Agency (NIA) and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), have been roped in to probe the syndicates suspected to be involved in sending people to Southeast Asian countries, where they are forced to work in call centres perpetrating a range of cybercrimes.

The Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre (I4C), which functions under the Home Ministry, is also looking into the matter.

The agencies will interview the victims to gather information about the networks and their international connections. The NIA is already investigating some human trafficking rackets through which job seekers were trapped.

Last November, it conducted searches at 22 locations linked to the suspects in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi, Maharashtra, and Punjab. They were identified as sub-agents, associates, and relatives of Cambodia-based Indian agents involved in the trafficking of Indian youth to Cambodia.

The agency found that the syndicate lured the job aspirants on the pretext of lucrative and legitimate employment and then forced them into “cyberslavery”. Their passports were seized by the call centres indulging in scams. They were mentally and physically tortured and also given electric shocks, if they refused to cooperate.

Five persons were arrested in May 2024 on the charge of forcing the youth to work in unscrupulous call centres in the Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in Laos, Cambodia, and other places. They allegedly worked in coordination with the traffickers operating from across the international border to facilitate illegal border-crossing of the Indian youth from Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam to Laos SEZ.

As it turned out, the call centres were running scams such as credit card fraud, investments in cryptocurrency using fake applications, honey trapping, and so on. Intelligence inputs led officials to Sartaj Singh and other suspects in Vadodara (Gujarat), Gopalganj (Bihar), South-West Delhi, and Haryana.

The police of respective States have also registered first information reports in this regard.

On the instructions of foreign-based agents, the accused were active in several districts of Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Gujarat, Delhi, Punjab, and Haryana. The syndicates were further connected to operatives based in other parts of India and also in countries like the United Arab Emirates, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Laos.

Earlier, the Indian Embassy in Laos had rescued more than 400 Indian nationals.

On its part, it is learnt that the CBI is likely to ascertain if any of the fraudulent call centres and cybercrimes currently being investigated by the agency is linked to the persons running the cyberfraud rackets from the Southeast Asian countries.