India has brought back 549 of its citizens who were freed from cyber crime centres located along the Myanmar-Thailand border in two flights operated by military aircraft, the external affairs ministry said on Wednesday.
The Indian nationals, from states such as Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh, had all been lured to either Thailand or Myanmar with false promises of jobs in the IT sector. They were then trafficked to cyber crime centres, mostly run by Chinese criminal gangs, in lawless border regions of Myanmar that aren’t controlled by the military junta.
Most of the Indians were freed, along with citizens of other South and Southeast Asian countries, during a recent crackdown on the cyber crime centres along the border with Thailand. They were taken from Myanmar’s Myawaddy region to Mae Sot in Thailand and housed for some time in detention centres before being brought back in a C-17 heavy lift aircraft of the Indian Air Force (IAF) on Monday and Tuesday.
“Government of India arranged for the safe repatriation of 266 Indians [on Tuesday] by an IAF aircraft, who were released from cybercrime centres in South East Asia. On Monday, 283 Indians were similarly repatriated,” external affairs ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said in a social media post.
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The Indian embassies in Myanmar and Thailand worked with the governments of the two countries for the release and repatriation of the Indians, he said.
The external affairs ministry said on Monday that the government has been making sustained efforts for the release of Indians lured to various southeast Asian countries, including Myanmar, with fake job offers.
“These persons were subsequently made to indulge in cybercrime and engage in other fraudulent activities in scam centres operating in regions along the Myanmar-Thailand border,” the ministry said in a statement.
“The government of India wishes to reiterate its caution, circulated earlier from time to time through advisories and social media posts, about such rackets,” the ministry said.
The ministry reiterated its advice that Indian nationals should verify the credentials of foreign employers through Indian missions and check the antecedents of recruiting agents and companies before taking up jobs in this region.
In January, the Indian embassy in Laos rescued 67 Indian men who were duped and trafficked into cyber-scam centres operating at a special economic zone, taking the total number of citizens saved from such scams in the Southeast Asian country to 924.
Over the past three years, hundreds of Indian nationals have been lured by criminal gangs operating such scams in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Thailand.
Chinese criminal syndicates are believed to be behind what has come to be known as the “pig butchering” scam, which involves online fraudsters convincing people to deposit money into fake platforms. The name is derived from the analogy to a farmer fattening up a pig before slaughtering it.