Panjab Tops List of About 30,000 Indians Trapped in Southeast Asia

The Enforcement Directorate has sought details of a $13.33M alleged cyber fraud case from the Special Investigation Team and Panjab Police, following reports of Indians being trapped in cyber slavery in Southeast Asia. Data compiled by the Bureau of Immigration under the Ministry of Home Affairs reveals that 29,466 out of 73,138 Indians who traveled to Cambodia, Thailand, Myanmar, and Vietnam on visitor visas from January 2022 to May 2024 have not returned and are trapped in those countries. Of these, over one-third are from three states: Panjab (3,667), Maharashtra (3,233), and Tamil Nadu (3,124). 20,450 individuals are in Thailand, accounting for over 69% of the total. The majority of the unreturned individuals are males (21,182) and fall within the 20-39 years age group (17,115). Victims were deceived with promises of data entry jobs, had their passports confiscated, and were coerced into creating fake social media accounts to perpetrate cyber frauds. Then they were employed by these scamming companies where they were forced to create fake social media accounts to lure people to invest in cryptocurrency applications or fraud investment funds. Analysis by the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre showed that approximately 45% of cybercrimes targeting Indians originate from Southeast Asia, with around 100K cyber complaints registered since January 2023. In response, the union govt.’s high-level inter-ministerial panel has directed all states and union territories to conduct ground-level verifications to obtain details of these individuals. Established in May 2024, the panel identified gaps in the banking, immigration, and telecom sectors that facilitated the exploitation. Earlier reports indicated that over 5K Indians were suspected to be trapped in Cambodia, losing at least $66.67M in the six months preceding March 2024.