A look at the online scam industry in Southeast Asia and how Indians became its targets; 2,358 Indians were rescued from scam compounds between 2022 and 2024
scroll.in/article/1078... Ayush Tiwari unpacks how the global #cybercrime network works to target Indians. … X: Neha / @nehaverma107 : Crazy report‼️Hope all of our trapped country people can return safely soon and this menace comes to an end. But this whole thing is so complicated specially the connection with unemployment. Amrita / @singhamritaa : The scam calls we get and the increasing cases of digital arrests are a part of a much larger story of human trafficking and international crime syndicates. @sighyush pieces it all this together in his latest series. First part: https://scroll.in/... Shoaib Daniyal / @shoaibdaniyal : “Chinese have said is that these operations need to stop targeting the Chinese. So criminal groups evolved and started targeting English-speaking countries, specifically US, UK, and also India.” Read part 1 of @scroll_in's new cyber-scam epidemic series. https://scroll.in/... @scroll_in : Indians lost $1.3 billion to #cyberscams in just nine months last year. In this special series, we track the full arc of this terrifying story in which even the scamsters are victims. @sighyush decodes how the online scam industry sprung up and Indians became targets. [video] Ajay Krishnan / @haramitheatre : The first story, by @sighyush, in a fascinating new series looking at the rise in cybercrime in India. Traces links to a complex international crime web worth tens of billions of dollars, with powerful players, “scam compounds” and trafficked workers. https://scroll.in/... Josh Sheehan / @sheehanj920 : Excited to read the rest of this series! Even as transnational cybercrime ops pivoted to targets much more proximal to India, there hasn't been much talk in media. Glad to see note that most all are lured by perceptions & promises of economic opportunity they don't see at home. [image] Nidhi Suresh / @nidhisuresh_ : “Between 2022 and 2024, the Indian government rescued 2,358 Indians from scam compounds in Southeast Asia” @sighyush writes about the recruitment, process and how Indian's have lost nearly $1.3 billion in just 2024. https://scroll.in/... Ayush Tiwari / @sighyush : SERIES: We went to the ugly heart of India's cyberscam epidemic. It lies thousands of kms outside its borders. The first story on @scroll_in looks at the men, the networks, and events that shaped an industry that targets thousands of Indians every day. https://scroll.in/... @scroll_in : As Chinese law enforcement began to clamp down on #cyberscam targeting Chinese back in China, criminal groups evolved and started targeting English-speaking countries, specifically US, UK, and also India. Read @sighyush's report to know more https://scroll.in/... [image] @scroll_in : “Between 2022 and 2024, the Indian government rescued 2,358 Indians from scam compounds in Southeast Asia.” https://scroll.in/... @sighyush decodes the world of cybercrime, where even the scamsters are victims. [image] @scroll_in : #Cyberscam | At the helm of this industry are Chinese crime syndicates that operate out of Southeast Asia, mainly Cambodia, Myanmar and Laos. https://scroll.in/... Expert says scam compounds across these three countries are “interconnected and run similarly”. @sighyush [image] @scroll_in : The recruiters lure in youth with lucrative jobs in Thailand and Malaysia. But many end up being transported to notorious casino towns in neighbouring Myanmar and Cambodia. https://scroll.in/... Ayush Tiwari unpacks how the global #cybercrime network works to target Indians. [image] @scroll_in : To scam Indians, cybercriminals have had to recruit people from India. India's vast English-speaking population, combined with high unemployment levels & lack of quality jobs makes Indians extremely vulnerable to #humantrafficking. https://scroll.in/... @sighyush decodes [image] @scroll_in : From 71 cybercrime complaints registered every day in 2019, the number shot to 6,175 complaints a day in 2024. https://scroll.in/... In the first part of a #Scroll series, @sighyush breaks down the wide network, how the industry functions and how Indians fell prey. [image] LinkedIn: Ayush Tiwari : We've broken new ground today. After three months of researching, digging, travelling and interviewing people, we've started publishing …
Context & Ripple Effects
Related coverage has traced the supply side of these operations: Kokang’s emergence as a global scam hub and an enslaved worker’s account of being forced to defraud victims from Myanmar show the coercive labor model behind the fraud.
The India-focused reporting connects that cross-border infrastructure to recruitment conditions at home and a rising volume of cybercrime complaints. It reframes scam calls and “digital arrest” fraud as outputs of trafficking-linked criminal networks rather than isolated call-center crimes.
First-order effects
- Indian job seekers lured by overseas work offers can be trafficked into scam compounds in Myanmar and Cambodia, where they are compelled to target victims, including people in India.
- The rescue of 2,358 Indians between 2022 and 2024 puts a sustained consular, law-enforcement, and victim-repatriation burden on Indian authorities.
Second-order effects
- Because Chinese enforcement pressure reportedly pushed syndicates toward English-speaking targets, India becomes a more consequential market for networks able to adapt scripts and recruitment pipelines across borders.
- The link between forced labor and consumer fraud requires anti-trafficking and cybercrime responses to share intelligence; treating scam complaints solely as domestic fraud misses the operators’ overseas labor supply.
Third-order effects
- If this model persists, cyber-enabled fraud will increasingly be understood as a transnational trafficking business, making disruption dependent on coordination across origin countries, transit routes, and compound-hosting jurisdictions.
- The rise of impersonation-style fraud strengthens the case for scrutiny of India’s broader for-hire cybercrime ecosystem and for verification systems that can distinguish legitimate institutions from fraudulent outreach, though such systems alone cannot address coerced labor.
The trend: Cross-border scam compounds are converging human trafficking, multilingual digital fraud, and adaptable targeting into a single industrialized cybercrime model.