‘Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos emerge hub of organised financial crimes targeting Indians’

Nearly half of financial frauds targeting Indians are originating from the three south-east Asian countries of Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos, and many web applications used to commit the frauds are written in Chinese language, thereby not ruling out the Chinese connection, Rajesh Kumar, Chief Executive Officer of the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre, said on May 22. Mr. Kumar said in the first four months of the year, Indians had lost over ₹1,776 crore in 89,054 cases of financial crimes such as digital arrest, stock market scam, investment scam and romance or dating scam and there had been a “spurt in the organised crime from south-east Asia.” These complaints were received on national cyber crime portal — cybercrime.gov.in and 1930 helpline, and not all of them were converted into First Information Reports. Mr. Kumar said that according to open-source information, China was also a victim of such scams and in one spell in the past two years, 44,000 Chinese people were brought back from the “scam compounds.” “Many of the apps that we have seen being used are written in Chinese, therefore we cannot rule out the Chinese connection,” he said. The Indians erupted in protest as they wanted their passports back, the Andhra Pradesh police are investigating the case and three recruiting agents have been arrested,” Mr. Kumar said.