"Cambodian gov’t spokesman says 360 Indians freed from cyberscam rings", 23 May 2024

The Cambodian government and the Indian Embassy in Phnom Penh have worked to free 360 Indian citizens who were tricked into working at cyberscam operations in the seaside city of Sihanoukville, a Cambodian government spokesman told ...

Indian Ambassador Devyani Khobragade and Minister of Interior Sar Sokha have met many times … to rescue the Indians from the operations, Interior Ministry spokesman Touch Sokhak said.

All of the 360 victims have been sent back to India in recent weeks, he said.

Another 60 Indians who are still stuck in Cambodia are expected to be sent back to India in the coming weeks, according to Rajesh Kumar, the CEO of the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre.

The victims were lured to Cambodia through job offers, …

But once they arrived in Cambodia, their passports were confiscated and they were forced to use Telegram, WhatsApp, Facebook and other platforms and fake apps to try to scam people in India, he said.

… A United Nations report last year estimated that some 100,000 people in Cambodia have been trafficked and imprisoned by crime rings who force them through torture and threats to carry out online scams. Most of them involve convincing people to invest in bogus investments.

The 2023 U.S. Trafficking in Persons report said that forced criminality in cyber scam operations has become a multi-billion industry...

Touch Sokhak said that Cambodia has been a victim of the recent regional growth in cyberscams, and India has promised training and equipment to combat the crimes..