Mumbai: Mumbai police have busted a disturbing cyber slavery ring that was tricking Indians into fake overseas jobs, only to force them into running online scams from Laos.
The main accused, Salman Shaikh, was arrested after confessing to luring several Indian citizens with promises of high-paying data entry and call center work in Thailand. But here's the twisted part - Shaikh himself was originally a victim of the same scam back in 2022.According to police, Shaikh was initially trafficked to Laos where scammers held back his salary and basically forced him to become a recruiter to save himself. Over the past year, he managed to traffic between four to seven Indians using the same fake job promises that once fooled him.
The operation worked like this: victims would pay around ₹30,000 for visas and flight tickets, thinking they were heading to legitimate jobs in Thailand. Instead, they'd be flown to Bangkok and then smuggled into Laos by local contacts, including a Chinese national. Once there, their passports would be seized and they'd be forced to work in scam call centers, running fraud operations on WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram.When victims couldn't pay ransoms or tried to escape, the syndicate would simply replace them with new recruits. It's a vicious cycle that keeps the operation running.
"Shaikh's arrest highlights a broader trend of organized cyber slavery exploiting Indian workers in Southeast Asia," police officials said. They're now going after Shaikh's associates and similar agents operating across India and the region.
This isn't an isolated case. The Golden Triangle area of Southeast Asia has become a hub for these cyber slavery operations, and India has been seeing more and more of these cross-border trafficking cases in recent years. The scammers use the same playbook every time - fake job offers, stolen documents, forced participation in cybercrime, and ransom demands.
It's a wake-up call for anyone considering overseas job offers that seem too good to be true. They usually are.
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