NIA indictment reveals horrific abuse of victims

In the case of international human trafficking for cyber fraud, the indictment filed by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) revealed horrific stories of victims who refused to work. While men were instilled with the fear of being thrown from buildings, women were threatened with rape and starvation. Victims were sometimes mercilessly beaten if they refused to work in call centers involved in cybercrime in Laos.

Last week, the NIA presented the chargesheet against two of the key accused, Jerry Jacob and Godfrey Alvares. Detailing the modus operandi of the gang, the chargesheet explains how Indian youth were lured into jobs abroad as “live chat agents” and eventually pushed into cybercrime.

Under the scheme, the youths were lured with lucrative jobs in Thailand and Laos, taken on tourist visas and given a week of cryptocurrency training, before being handed 100 SIM cards, five to seven iPhones and a script to trap unsuspecting people.

According to the indictment, when the workers expressed their refusal to continue the illegal online fraud, “the defendant threatened to kill them”; with references to “serious injuries, being thrown from buildings, being cut into pieces and being thrown into the river.”

The NIA has recorded the statement of a woman who was forced to work in these call centres. “A victim was threatened with rape and charged in a false case registered at the local police station in the Golden Triangle, Laos SEZ,” the investigation revealed. According to the charge sheet, the unwilling victims were wrongly locked in a room for five to seven days without food and sometimes beaten.

Victims were also fined for trivial reasons, such as bending down to relax in their chairs during work or going to the toilet to urinate more than three to four times a day. Despite “punishment, torture and an unnecessary fine,” the victims, who were still unwilling to comply, were forced to pay a fine of $2,000 to be released from their detention in concentration camps and to get their Indian passports back.

Published on: Wednesday, July 3, 2024, 03:02 IST