1,600 Indians who fell prey to job scams brought back from Cambodia, Myanmar: S Jaishankar in Lok Sabha

“There are different aspects. One, which we have seen particularly in South East Asia, where fraudulent jobs are advertised. These are online scams. People are being taken to these countries, they are made to work in illegal places and we have been very active and vigilant. From Cambodia, we have brought back 1,167 Indian nationals, and from Myanmar, 497 nationals,” Jaishankar told the House.

He said the Indian government was in touch with the governments of Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos, where such cyber scams had been detected. In India, he said the government had requested for blocking websites that promote such jobs.

“A different set of problems has been raised for West Asia, the Gulf, Middle East, where often we have a situation of underpayment, non-payment of wages, maltreatment of Indian professionals and workers,” Jaishankar said, adding that the Indian embassies were holding open houses and monitoring the situation.

He added that the embassies had been tasked by the Narendra Modi government with ensuring the interests of Indian professionals and workers abroad.

In his written reply to Reddy’s question on recruiting agencies, Jaishankar said 2,164 such agencies were registered on the eMigrate portal as of December 8.