Cyber scams: 67 Indians rescued from Cambodia, 39 back home, says embassy

“On 22 September, pursuing circumstantial leads by the Embassy, the Cambodian Police has rescued 67 specified Indian nationals from Poipet,” it said done a station connected X, adding that successful adjacent practice with the Cambodian Police, they were present facilitating the repatriation of these 67 Indian nationals successful batches.

“Fifteen of our nationals person already near for India connected September 30, and 24 much person near connected October 1. Rest 28 volition scope India successful the people of adjacent fewer days,” it said.

However, the embassy besides reiterated its advisory to Indian nationals “to workout utmost caution successful taking up occupation opportunities successful Cambodia and different Southeast Asian countries done suspicious agents and societal media advertisements”.

Indian nationals who are presently stuck successful specified activities and privation to instrumentality to India whitethorn get successful interaction with the Indian Embassy, it said.

Since January 2022, the Embassy of India successful Phnom Penh has facilitated the repatriation of implicit 1,000 Indian citizens, with astir 770 successful the archetypal 9 months of 2024. This was imaginable with the practice extended by the Cambodian authorities, the embassy noted.

The cyber scam successful Cambodia involves deceiving Indian nationals with promises of morganatic employment opportunities, typically successful information introduction roles. However, upon arrival, they are coerced into participating successful amerciable cyber activities, specified arsenic creating fake societal media profiles and engaging successful fraudulent schemes to scam unsuspecting individuals. As galore arsenic 5,000 Indians person been duped successful specified scams successful Cambodia.

As reported by The Indian Express, 29,466 of the 73,138 Indians who travelled to Cambodia, Thailand, Myanmar and Vietnam connected visitant visas from January 2022 to May 2024 are yet to return. More than fractional (17,115) of these are successful the 20-39 years property group; 21,182 are men and implicit one-third are from 3 states — Punjab (3,667), Maharashtra (3,233) and Tamil Nadu (3,124). Thailand accounts for implicit 69 per cent of the full astatine 20,450, arsenic per Bureau of Immigration figures.