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Visakhapatnam:
The Visakhapatnam police on Saturday said it busted a cybercrime racket and arrested three consultancy agents for allegedly luring unemployed youths and sending them to Chinese-operated cybercrime rings in countries such as Cambodia, Myanmar, and Thailand.
Despite growing awareness of cybercrime, incidents continue to rise, with many still falling prey to sophisticated scams. To combat this, Visakhapatnam police launched an operation to root out these criminal activities, according to an official release.
Their efforts led to the arrest of consultancy agents from the Gajuwaka area, including the main suspect, Chukka Rajesh (33).
The illegal racket came to light after Botcha Sankar, an ex-Navy employee, filed a complaint through the 1930 cybercrimes helpline. Sankar’s complaint was based on the account of a victim who had managed to escape.
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Following the complaint, Visakhapatnam police arrested Chukka Rajesh, the ringleader, and his associates, Sabbavarapu Kondala Rao and Mannena Gnaneshwar Rao, both from the Gajuwaka area. The police investigation revealed a complex network of agents, including Santosh, Arya, Umamahesh, and Habib, who facilitated the trafficking.
Visakhapatnam Commissioner of Police, Ravi Shankar Ayyanar, told ANI that they suspected there could be over 5,000 victims from Andhra Pradesh, especially from Srikakulam, Visakhapatnam, Anakapalli, Palasa, Rajamundry, Tuni, Amalapuram, and Anantapur, apart from Kolkata.
He said that they are sharing the investigation details with the Indian Embassy in Cambodia and appealed to the parents of victims to approach them and the Indian Embassy in Cambodia.
Cases were registered against the three local agents for human trafficking, extortion, wrongful confinement, and criminal conspiracy.
Ravi Shankar further said that the Indian agents in Cambodia called the local agents to arrange people for cybercrimes in the name of data entry jobs. The local agents collected Rs 1.50 lakh from each job aspirant, out of which they sent Rs 80,000 to the Cambodian agents for passports, visas, and other arrangements, and kept the rest as their commission, he pointed out.
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Upon reaching Cambodia, these youths were locked up as slaves and forced to operate in the cybercrime network. They were denied food and pay until they complied. The agents gave them training before deploying them to commit various online frauds, through which they robbed innocent people of their hard-earned money.
“Courier scams, cryptocurrency scams, task games, and OTP frauds are some of the offenses committed by them,” he said.
“Those who work properly will be given a salary of 600 dollars, besides incentives, and promotions. As per the investigation, the victims are forced to work for at least one year,” he added.
During the investigation, the police verified the facts through a video call with the victims, Ravi Shankar said, adding that the victims had shared their hardships. Once they agreed, the men and women were sent to countries like Cambodia, Myanmar, and Thailand, where they ended up working for Chinese companies. These companies trained them for 7-10 days and forced them into engaging in cybercrime at an average salary of 600 dollars per month. Any resistance invited severe punishment, including torture and deprivation of food and water.
Officials said that approximately 5,000 people from Andhra Pradesh had fallen victim to this scam over the past two years.
The victims went to Cambodia on tourist visas, which were converted into business visas once they joined Chinese companies, they added.
Police were further looking into the case.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)