India has investigated reports that its citizens are suspected of being trafficked to Myanmar's fraudulent parks and forced to participate in encryption fraud. The case points to cyber-frauding strongholds along the Thai-Myanmar border and has again pushed the South-East Asian cross-border fraud chain forward.
Cases reported by families
According to police in Maharashtra, India, a 24-year-old man who had been offered the opportunity to work in Bangkok had arrived in Thailand and been transferred to a park near the Myanmar border, where passports and travel documents had subsequently been confiscated. Since the cases involved human trafficking networks abroad, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of India had been informed and central agencies were assisting in the investigation.
According to the police, the man had been in contact with his family for one time and subsequently lost contact. He described to his family that detainees in the park were forced to work between 16 and 18 hours a day for cyber-fraud; those who refused to obey were allegedly subjected to ill-treatment such as electric shocks.
The victim claims to have been forced to commit an encrypted investment scam.
The police also indicated that the man ' s claim that hundreds of Indian citizens might be held in similar camps has not yet been independently verified. At the same time, a similar case was reported in the local media: a Maharashtra resident who had been taken to Thailand for a call centre post was taken to the Myanmar Park, where he still remains.
It was reported that victims were forced to operate online investments and encrypted money scams, including the creation of false social media accounts to induce others to participate in fraudulent investment projects. According to another family member, the detainee had demanded 800,000 rupees as a condition for release. Local governments indicated that they were promoting the return of persons in need to India.
Multi-country response
The case has once again drawn attention to fraud networks in Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos. The groups in question are often lured by high-paid jobs abroad, recruiting IT, passenger service, digital marketing and data entry personnel, awaiting the victim ' s arrival in South-East Asia to confiscate documents and force her to engage in online fraud.
In May this year, the Myanmar military published a draft Anti-Network Fraud Act, which provides for sentences ranging from 10 years to life imprisonment for operating a cyber-fraud centre or for carrying out a digital currency fraud. It also proposes that the death penalty may be imposed if the operator forces another person to participate in fraud by violence, torture, unlawful detention or other cruel means.
India had previously initiated rescue operations in similar cases. Earlier this year, more than 120 Indian citizens had been repatriated from the Myanmar Cyber Fraud Centre, and additional relief had been provided the previous year.