Job aspirants from Andhra Pradesh continue to fall victims to Southeast Asia scam centers

Time of India

6 hours ago

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Visakhapatnam: Unemployed youths from Vizag and Vijayawada seeking overseas employment are falling victim to cyber scams in Myanmar, Cambodia, Thailand, and Laos. Despite warnings against falling for lucrative jobs offered on travel visas, hundreds of unemployed youth from parts of Andhra Pradesh are being exploited.
Police observed that unemployment among youth is one of the major reasons for the increasing overseas job frauds.
The overseas job frauds continue to haunt Vizag city and surrounding areas, with new cases surfacing regularly. The police suspect that youngsters from Vizag and Vijayawada are falling prey to fake overseas job offers and getting trapped in cybercrime networks in Southeast Asian countries.
Inspector of Cybercrime Police Station, Vizag, K Bhavani Prasad, stated some gangs have been luring unemployed youth in parts of the state under the guise of data entry and hospitality jobs abroad.
The victims are being forced into cyber frauds after their arrival in foreign countries. Interestingly, some youngsters from Andhra Pradesh who had gone to Cambodia and Laos worked for Chinese cybercriminals and duped Indians (particularly people in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana).
These individuals, now turned agents, have been deceiving unemployed youth in the Vizag region into cyber slavery abroad with fake job offers, he added.
Explaining the modus operandi, the police said some agents from Andhra Pradesh living abroad (Cambodia and Laos), with the support of their friends in parts of Vizag and Vijayawada, promise jobs (data entry operators and others) in Thailand and other places, offering decent salary, food, and accommodation. Desperate job aspirants pay amounts ranging from Rs 2 to 3 lakh to agents for employment abroad. Once the duped youth land in Thailand, they realize they were cheated.
Later, they are trafficked to Laos and Cambodia, where they are forced to commit cybercrimes against Indians, even as their Chinese bosses abuse and threaten them, the police added.
A few weeks ago, more than ten youngsters from Vizag and other parts of the state stranded in an undisclosed location in Thailand and being forced into cyber slavery managed to send a video message to their families, pleading for help. The police said the victims were recruited through unknown agencies with promises of data entry, receptionist, and hotel jobs in Thailand.
Later, they were forced into cybercrime operations and tortured by the cyber gangs if they refused to cooperate.
Preliminary investigations into the cyber slavery incidents revealed that some agencies in Vizag, Vijayawada, and a few other cities and towns have been targeting unemployed youth, sending them to Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, and Bangkok, where they are forced to commit cybercrimes. The victims are forced to work for organized cybercrime syndicates.
Though the police are unable to provide the exact number of people from Andhra Pradesh still caught in such cybercrime networks abroad, they suspect that hundreds of youth from the state have been working for organized cybercrime syndicates in Southeast Asia.
Vizag city police chief Dr. Shanka Brata Bagchi appealed to job aspirants to verify credentials and licenses of agencies before accepting overseas job offers, as cyber crooks have been duping unemployed youth with fake job offers, he added.
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