26-05-2025
Man held for trafficking 2 youths to Laos for crypto frauds
Mumbai: With the arrest of a 29-year-old Surat-based man, the Bureau of Immigration and the Sahar Police busted a
human trafficking
case at the Mumbai International Airport recently. The accused, PK Chauhan, was allegedly involved in trafficking two men in their early twenties to Laos for committing cryptocurrency frauds.
Chauhan was remanded to judicial custody by a local court on Monday. Sahar police are probing whether he has any local accomplices.
Around 11 pm on May 25, Chauhan approached an immigration counter with his boarding pass for verification. He was followed by a 21-year-old man, also from Surat. Both men were to fly to Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam from Mumbai. Then, they were to board another flight from Vietnam to Laos. Their flight to Vietnam was scheduled at 12.40 am on Monday.
The immigration officer at the counter quizzed them about their purpose for visiting Laos.
Chauhan replied it was for work. But the officer was not satisfied. It appeared to him that Chauhan was guiding the younger man and taking him along. The immigration officer alerted his superior.
Meanwhile, there was another 20-year-old man also headed to Laos for work waiting at another immigration counter. All three men were taken aside and quizzed.
The FIR, lodged subsequently on the basis of an immigration officer's statement, says that Chauhan was previously in Laos from Dec 2022 to Feb 2023 through a Dubai-based agent and was involved in a cryptocurrency chatting scam. As part of the scam, he allegedly spoke to people living in the US, Canada and Australia through Facebook chat and convinced them to invest in cryptocurrency. But they never received any returns.
Further, he was in the Golden Triangle (region in South East Asia where borders of Thailand, Laos and Myanmar meet) between Dec 2024 and March 2025 where he was again involved in a chatting scam.
According to the FIR, Chauhan was headed to Laos on Monday in connection with another chatting scam and was taking the two younger men along for the same purpose. The two younger men held a BCA (Bachelors in Computer Applications) degree and were promised a job in "computers" with a monthly pay packet of Rs 60000 to Rs 70000 each. They were in touch with Chauhan for a few days before the flight.
Chauhan was handed over to the Sahar Police and placed under arrest.
