Rescued victims of ‘human trafficking’ from Cambodia after arriving in Visakhapatnam International Airport.
| Photo Credit: V. RAJU
The Telangana police identified eight more individuals from the State who were promised a job and smuggled to Cambodia for running a fake call centre. This comes a month after Sircilla police arrested K. Sai Prasad, an agent of the cyber fraud gang, allegedly running a fake call centre in Cambodia.
“In the list of 20 individuals shared by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), we have identified eight people who are currently in Cambodia working in the call centre. They have been in touch with their families through WhatsApp. Details of these individuals are being shared with the Indian Embassy and will be rescued,” informed an official from Telangana State Cyber Security Bureau (TSCSB).
Meanwhile, verification of whereabouts of 12 others in the list is also being done through other channels, the official said.
The case was transferred to TSCSB on May 16 owing to the involvement of international criminals after the network was unearthed following the return of A. Shiva Prasad, who was conned into working in the call centre, after collecting ₹1.40 lakh on the pretext of a job in the Southeast Asian nation.
The police have identified three more agents in the network, of which one has been issued a notice under Section 41 of the CrPC while lookout notices are being issued for the other two who are currently not in the country.
The scam dates back at least three years which led to raids in call centres allegedly run by Chinese nationals defrauding individuals in loan app scams in the State. “They then decamped and re-established themselves in Nepal and Bangladesh. Following the clean-up operation in the two neighbouring countries, they have now shifted their base to Myanmar, Cambodia and Vietnam and have been targeting Indian youth from there,” the official explained.
Earlier this week, 60 Indian nationals, 15 of whom were from Vizag, were rescued by the embassy from fraudulent employers and returned home following the arrest of Chukka Rajesh Vijay Kumar, Mannena Gnaneswara Rao and Sabbavarapu Kondala Rao — local agents from Vishakhapatnam.
“The interesting part is that in many cases, like in Telangana, such agents themselves know their counterparts from Cambodia only through social media. They reach out to unemployed youth by offering them software jobs against the fee of ₹1.5 lakh and after reaching there individuals are forced to participate in cyber scams in India,” the official explained.
