New Delhi: At least 540 Indian nationals employed by ‘scam farms’ and detained in Cambodia will be repatriated to India Monday via aircraft arranged by the Indian Air Force (IAF), in one of the largest such operations to date, ThePrint has learnt.
According to sources in the Indian security establishment, this will mark the conclusion of one of the largest interstate operations involving cybercrime agencies including the Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre (IC4), which is coordinating the repatriation exercise.
The scam farms in Cambodia have duped hundreds if not thousands of Indians from different states to the tune of crores in the name of ‘digital arrests’ and other scams.
As many as a thousand people were detained after joint raids by Thai and Cambodian law enforcement agencies from various hotspots over the past week, one source told ThePrint. Cambodian authorities, it is learnt, then approached their Indian counterparts, following which the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) arranged for the return of these 540 Indians.
They will land at Hindon airport and will be taken to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) Academy in Ghaziabad where they will be questioned by police from different states, multiple sources confirmed to ThePrint.
“These individuals are from different states and have been working in Cambodia for a long time. While some were lured to these multi-storey complexes in Cambodia under the pretext of data entry jobs—only to have their passports confiscated and be forced into a round-the-clock, multi-billion-dollar scam industry as cyber slaves—others were fully aware of what they were getting into,” said the source quoted earlier.
Adding, “They had been sending remittances back home.”
A second source explained, “A majority of cyber frauds were being run from these centres in Cambodia by these people who were trained over time. They will be examined thoroughly by police from different states and the CBI.” The source added that the individuals will be “let off” after their statements are recorded and recoveries made.
Sources in the security establishment estimate there are more than 5,000 Indians being held captive in Cambodia where they are forced to run cyber scams or sextortion rackets.
The coastal city of Sihanoukville, for instance, is notorious for being a hub for this multi-billion dollar industry which employs and targets people primarily from India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Malaysia.
In September 2022, Cambodian authorities claimed to have carried out a “crackdown” on the industry, raiding buildings and apartment complexes across Sihanoukville. But despite such crackdowns, the industry continues to thrive and has since moved to other parts of Cambodia, namely Pursat, Koh Kong and Kandal provinces and the city of Bavet.
Cambodia over time has become the epicentre of South Asia’s human trafficking industry along with Myanmar, Thailand and Laos. A 2023 report by the United Nations estimated that at least 100,000 people from around the world had been trafficked to Cambodia to run online scams—a claim the Cambodian government dismissed as “baseless”.
Police in Thailand just last week detained 100 people for their alleged involvement with a scam farm in Cambodia—its first arrest of Thai nationals as part of a regional crackdown. Arrest warrants were also issued for two Chinese nationals seen as “gang leaders”.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)