Odisha to Cambodia via Vietnam – how Indians hoping for a better life were duped by dishonest agents, turned into cyber scammers

Sahu, a resident of Biswanathpur village who was among an estimated 5,000 Indians trapped in Cambodia and forced into cyber crime, returned after his case was taken up by Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan with the External Affairs Ministry. He was in the country for a month-and-a-half, and returned in September last year.

After a report by The Indian Express flagging the circumstances of the 5,000-plus Indians, the MEA last week said the Centre is collaborating with Cambodian authorities and has rescued and repatriated about 250 Indians so far.

Apart from Sahu, The Indian Express spoke to two men from Karnataka who managed to return. All of them had similar stories to tell — lack of opportunities at home, agents who exploited their desperation, a job that turned out to be nothing more than scamming people across the globe, and employers who seized their passport and Visa and practically held them hostage. In one case, a Karnataka youth was beaten and given electric shocks when he tried to raise an alarm.

“After graduating, I worked in several cities – Gurgaon, Bengaluru and Hyderabad – as a computer operator, earning Rs 20,000-25,000. Since many youths from my locality migrate to Saudi and other Middle East and Southeast Asian countries, I too decided to try my luck,” Sahu said.

Sahu, who comes from the Sundi caste – traditionally liquor sellers – said he and his elder brother wanted to shun the practice and take up jobs in big cities.

“While working in Hyderabad, a contact told me about a consultancy in Vadodara that helps people get jobs abroad. They added me to a WhatsApp group and asked me to wait for openings. After three-four months, they said there is an opening in Vietnam and took an interview, which I cleared,” he said.

Sahu was asked to deposit Rs 1.5 lakh as Visa fee, for which he mortgaged his wife’s jewellery.

He took a flight from Kolkata to Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh on July 25, 2023. This was the beginning of his ordeal.

After landing, he was connected with a person meant to take him to his destination. Around 6-7 hours into the road journey, he noticed he was at the border of Cambodia.

“I called my agent in India, who said the company that initially offered me a job in Vietnam had rejected me. He said they had arranged a job in Cambodia, and that I should accept it since I had already paid,” he said.

Sahu said that after reaching Cambodia, another agent took him to a location where he met three other Indians – from Telangana, Tamil Nadu and Punjab.

“I was scared and wanted to return as they were offering me $700 a month, though I had been promised $900. Despite my hesitation, I was taken to Poipet, close to the Thailand border, where I had to join work,” he said.

For the first 10 days, I was trained to open new accounts on Facebook, WhatsApp and a few other social media sites under fake names.

“I was uncomfortable with the nature of work and contacted the agent back in India, but he asked me to do whatever I was told, and assured me the job had good incentives,” he said.

The job entailed chatting with others through these fake profiles and winning their confidence. “We were scammers. Once we became friendly, we would ask people to invest in fraud businesses, and block their account once they paid. I was asked to handle people from the Philippines,” he said.

He would target people with sound financial background, which he could ascertain by looking at their profiles – from the car they drove to the watches and clothes they wore to the gadgets they used.

“We used translation software to communicate. Thousands of youths from India, Indonesia and Nepal work there as scammers for various Chinese companies,” said Sahu.

He said that when he eventually refused to work any further, he was put in a room under CCTV surveillance and asked not to leave. “For the work I did for 32 days, I received no pay,” he said.

Sahu’s family eventually approached a local BJP leader, who took up the matter with Union minister Pradhan. Once Pradhan communicated this to his cabinet colleague S Jaishankar, Sahu’s return to the country became possible.

‘It was nothing but a jail’

In Karnataka’s Chikkamagaluru district, Ashok, 28, had been struggling to get a job despite a B.Com degree. He reached Cambodia via Bangkok in March last year, and managed to get back in November. “I was offered a salary of Rs 80,000-1,00,000 for a data entry operator job. The agent lived in a neighbouring town,” he said.

“He accompanied me there and initially, I stayed in his room before shifting to a dormitory. My passport and visa were snatched, and within two weeks, I understood that I was supposed to run a cyber fraud. When I objected, my ‘manager’ demanded Rs 13 lakh to release me. It was nothing but a jail,” he said.

With nowhere to go, many like Ashok reconciled with their circumstances. Pretending to be a woman, he would look for ‘targets’ on dating apps.

Unaware that his WhatsApp chat was being monitored by his employers, Ashok one day confided in a man he had met on a dating app. “I was put in a dark room, assaulted with an iron rod, and given low intensity shocks. My phone was confiscated; it was hell. During six days of confinement, they gave me the phone twice, but only so I could ask my family for money to release me. Once my family realised what had happened, they filed a police complaint in Karnataka,” he said.

Ashok also managed to briefly call his friend and neighbour, Manjunath Ravi. “FIrst Ashok, and then a woman from Cambodia, asked for Rs 13 lakh for his release. Police asked me to assure them it would be done. Meanwhile, an FIR was registered against the agent,” Ravi said, adding that the police got in touch with the agent in Cambodia and threatened to book his family back home.

Under pressure, the agent let Ashok go – but not before planting drugs in his luggage so he would get caught on the way. Fortunately for Ashok, he left his bags behind before departing.

Also from Chikmagalur district, ITI (electronics) graduate Stephen Monthero, 21, took up the Cambodia offer because his job as a delivery agent did not pay enough. An agent in Mangalore assured him a salary of Rs 75,000 – this too was sold as a data entry operator gig.

He described the building as something akin to a casino on the outside, while inside, hundreds if not thousands of scammers worked overtime to dupe people across the world.

“My job was to download girls’ photos and create profiles on Facebook and Instagram. I was tasked to lure rich Indians to invest in forex trading. The first step would be to bring them to WhatsApp, which was monitored 24×7,” he said.

When Stephen failed to meet his ‘targets’, his salary was deducted and he got just Rs 25,000 for a month. Most people, he said, worked from 10 am to midnight.

He also spoke of incentives for those who performed well. An Indian national, he said, was rewarded with Rs 10.25 lakh and an Apple iPhone Pro Max after he managed to defraud someone of crores.

Both Ashok and Stephen said that while they were fortunate to return, hundreds of Indians continue to be trapped there.