New Delhi: Amid concerns about allegations of intimidation and abuse of Indian youths lured to Southeast Asian countries by agents with promises of better job opportunities, the Indian Embassy in Laos has announced the rescue of 67 Indian men trapped in such circumstances.
The rescue is part of broader efforts by Embassy officials across Laos, Cambodia, and other Southeast Asian countries to help Indians held hostage and allegedly forced into cyber slavery. So far, the Indian Embassy has rescued 924 Indians, of which 857 have also returned to the country.
According to a statement from the Indian Embassy in Vientiane Monday, the rescued men were duped and trafficked to cyber scam call centres operating in the Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone (GTSEZ) in Bokeo province.
The press release said the youths were forced to work under conditions of intimidation and abuse at the hands of criminal syndicates operating in the GTSEZ.
The Embassy said it received requests for help and sent officials to the area, working closely with Lao authorities to complete the required procedures and papers for the men to leave the GTSEZ. They were then brought to the embassy in Vientiane.
The Indian Ambassador, Prashant Agarwal, met the rescued men and suggested they lodge complaints against the agents who duped them.
“Embassy officials are currently working with concerned Lao authorities for completion of their exit formalities, following which all of them would be able to travel back to India shortly,” the statement said.
It added that requests have also been raised for action against those accused.
ThePrint reported in April that Cambodia has a billion-dollar Artificial Intelligence-aided cyber scam industry in which thousands of people from around the world are lured on the pretext of ‘data entry’ jobs, only to have their passports snatched and be forced to work as cyber slaves.
If they complained or refused to do the task, they would be denied food and even made to sit like a ‘murga (rooster)’, they said.
Indians rescued from Cambodia said they were forced to extort people back home and would be punished if they failed to meet their targets.
The operations are run by kingpins behind closed doors on campuses with little access to the outside world for those trapped inside. The ‘cyber slaves’ are trained and provided with scripts on how to dupe people.
Last August, the Indian Embassy in Laos said that 47 such trapped Indian youth were rescued. They were also forced into working at cyber scam centres.
According to officials, the Indian youth are lured on the pretext of a job in Thailand but are then asked to travel by road to Chiang Rai which is close to the Thailand-Laos border.
Once they reach the GTSEZ in Bokeo, their passports are forcibly taken away by criminal syndicates who then force them to sign a work contract in the native language.
(Edited by Sugita Katyal)