PUNE: He thought he was taking a data-entry job abroad. Instead, his passport was taken, his phone wiped, and he was forced—under threats, beatings and electric shocks—to participate in online fraud, a form of exploitation police now describe as “cyber slavery.”
A Detention That Uncovered a Hidden Story
The case surfaced not through a missing-persons report or a rescue operation, but during questioning in an e-share fraud investigation in Pune. Officers of the Pimpri Chinchwad police detained a 37-year-old resident of Ratnagiri whose name had emerged during the probe. What investigators did not anticipate was the account he would eventually give: a detailed narration of months spent under coercion in a Southeast Asian country, working for an organised cyber fraud operation.
According to the police, the man and the primary suspect in the fraud case shared identical names, a coincidence that initially drew attention to him. Only later, after prolonged questioning, did the broader picture emerge—one that pointed beyond a single fraud case to a larger pattern of cross-border exploitation tied to deceptive job offers.
Police officials said the man had remained silent about his experience for years, speaking only after being detained, when fear of legal consequences forced him to explain how his name became linked to fraudulent online activity.
The Job Offer and the Journey Abroad
The man told investigators that in April 2023 he responded to a job advertisement he saw on a social media platform. The offer promised a data-entry position in a Southeast Asian country, with a salary of ₹1 lakh a month. Lodging and boarding, he was told, would be fully covered by the company.
He travelled out of India via Mumbai to join the firm. Soon after arriving, he said, company officials confiscated his passport. He was instructed to make calls through mobile messaging applications to carry out online share-trading frauds and other digital scams.
When he refused, he said, the coercion escalated. He described being subjected to physical torture, including electric shocks, until he agreed to follow instructions. “Those who refused to toe their line were administered electric shocks,” he told police, according to officials familiar with the questioning.
Life Inside the Scam Operation
The victim told police there were around 50 people working at the facility, including some women. Several, he said, were Indians and Bangladeshi nationals who had arrived under similar job promises and later found themselves trapped.
Some workers, he said, were assigned to lure victims—particularly Indians—through mobile messaging apps. Others were pushed into executing specific online fraud schemes. According to his account, not everyone complied willingly; many did so because they felt they had no options.
He said he remained there for three to four months. Despite the promised salary, he was never paid. When he failed to dupe even a single victim, he was told his “performance” was poor and that he would be sent back to India.
Before allowing him to leave, he said, the operators forced him to call his family in India and ask them to pay for a return air ticket. His phone data was wiped completely, and he was threatened against disclosing his experience to anyone.
Fear, Silence, and a Broader Pattern
After returning to India, the man kept silent out of fear, police said. Only after his recent detention did he narrate the full account of what he described as cyber slavery—a modern form of human trafficking where individuals are lured abroad with false job offers and then coerced into committing digital crimes under threats of violence or torture.
Pimpri Chinchwad police commissioner Vinoy Kumar Choubey said the police were receiving complaints of people being forced into such cyber slavery through overseas job lures. Young job aspirants, he warned, should fully verify agents, companies, visas and employment contracts before accepting foreign assignments.
