Digital Arrest: The Cambodia Connection And How To Protect Your Hard-Earned Money!

A troubling new trend in cyber frauds has surfaced nationwide, where criminals pose as law enforcement officers to scare people by pretending to be under a “Digital Arrest.” The matter is so serious that in the 115th episode of Mann ki Baat, Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently addressed the subject after hearing about victims who had lost large sums of money. He cautioned the public to be on the lookout for scams of this nature. Many of people committing these scams have bases in three Southeast Asian countries: Myanmar, Laos, and Cambodia. 

Modus Operandi of Digital Arrest and other similar scams.

Ritesh Bhatia, the founder of V4WEB Cybersecurity, which works in cybercrime investigations and digital forensics, indicated that digital arrests fall into three categories: parcel scams, threatening to arrest close family, and impersonating government authorities. According to him, the prospect of arrest is a common thread that connects all three types of crimes and intimidates victims. Bhatia points out that the modus operandi of the scammers is to build on fear and not allow people to think by keeping on asking questions. When you do that, even the smartest of people will give in.

The scam starts with an SMS, email, or WhatsApp message saying that the recipient’s identity or phone number is associated with major crimes such as drug trafficking, money laundering, or pornography. The message encourages the receiver to contact a certain number to avoid being ‘digitally arrested.’

When the victim responds, fraudsters establish a video conversation over platforms such as Skype or WhatsApp, posing as officers from state police, the Central Bureau of Investigation, the Narcotics Control Bureau, or Customs. They don uniforms, official merchandices, and background sounds to create a plausible scenario of police station.

As the conversation moves ahead, the fraudsters make significant allegations about the victim’s involvement in henious crimes including drug distribution and money laundering. In certain circumstances, they make false claims that a family member has been detained or accused in illicit activity.

Scammers keep the victim on the line, requesting they remain on video for ‘monitoring’ or ‘verification.’ This approach keeps the sufferer in a condition of terror, preventing them from consulting others or thinking properly.

Demand for ransom: After adequately intimidating the victim, the fraudsters demand cash to ‘clear’ the accusations. They advise the victim to send significant quantities of money to certain accounts, which are often mule accounts used to launder monies.

In the start of the four months of 2024, victims across India have lost crores in cases of digital arrests. In one instance, a Bengaluru-based resident was duped of INR3.8 crore by criminals posing as Mumbai Police. According to an Indian Express report, a former director of a private firm lost INR25 crore in a digital arrest fraud. This matter first came to light in the scorching heat of May this year, when about 360 Indians have been rescued from cyber slavery in Cambodia after being lured with attractive jobs and salaries but were forced to con Indian consumers through various scams including digital arrests.

According to an investigation by the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C), a branch of the Ministry of Home Affairs, Indians have lost about INR120 crore in digital arrest scams to date. Furthermore, the National Cybercrime Reporting Portal receives around 7,000 cyber-related fraud reports every day, with Southeast Asia accounting for 45% of them.

Recently, the new media outlet India Today TV published an image, which was part of a number of other related pictures, after it recently exposed a digital arrest racket. A sting operation was conducted after fraudsters contacted an India Today reporter, falsely claiming that a package in his name containing 400 grams of drugs had been seized, thus attempting to coerce money from him. According to the India Today sting operation, the scam lured Indian jobseekers with dubious foreign job offers, later trapping them as digital operatives or “digital slaves” in fraudulent activities.

But how Indians crossed the borders and reached the destinations where they are forced to scam their own people?

Many Indians rescued from Cambodia were recruited by unregistered agents in the country, who offered them work as data entry operators in Singapore and Vietnam. According to several media accounts and interactions with victims, the majority of the victims are educated yet unemployed. They were seeking for better careers and were willing to go overseas. Most of them discovered these opportunities through social media posts, WhatsApp, or other messaging platforms. The job titles were innocuous: data entry, digital sales and marketing executive, and customer support representative.

According to a statement from the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), the victims are subjected to a basic interview before being given a typing test. Once they passed the test, they got positions with high salaries, along with accomodation and air tickets.

According to various media stories quoting victims, they were granted tourist visas to Thailand or Vietnam before being unlawfully transported to Cambodia or Laos. According to The media outlet The Print, after victims arrive in Bangkok, they are driven across the Cambodian border and handed a two-month work visa. In the instance of victims travelling to Laos, the MEA stated that they are unlawfully transported from Thailand and forced to labour in the region’s Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone. Then they are trained to carry out online frauds, particularly against the Indian populace.

Does this frauds have any chinese connection?

The origins of the digital arrests scam are unknown, although some early reports indicate that it began a few years ago when scammers impersonated Chinese police officials to target Mandarin-speaking nations such as the United States, Australia, and Singapore. Criminals posing as police officers informed victims, typically students who had recently transferred countries, that they were under investigation for financial offences.

According to market research portal Statista, there were 487 frauds performed by impersonating Chinese authorities in Singapore in 2016. This increased to 752 in 2021. In a 2019 advisory, the Singapore government said that between January and November 2019, USD18.8 million were stolen through impersonation scams.

What actions our government took?

In May, the MEA issued an advisory to Indians travelling to Cambodia and Laos for work. The Ministry of Home Affairs and MEA are also working with the Cambodian government and authorities to rescue the rest of them.

On May 16, the Centre formed an interministerial group of law enforcement and intelligence agencies to deal with the spike in cybercrimes targeting Indians from Southeast Asian nations, as I4C chief executive Rajesh Kumar stated at a news briefing in New Delhi. He further stated that I4C regularly monitors and blocks platforms and accounts used for cybercrime, such as Skype accounts, advertisements on Meta and Google, SIM cards, and bank accounts.

Still, where are we lacking?

According to cybersecurity experts, many similar attacks go unreported since the authorities aren’t sympathetic to the victims. Bhatia points out that when such situations occur, people begin to talk about raising awareness, and both the central and state governments have issued cautions about these frauds on social media sites and in the press.

According to him, the necessity of the hour is to continually raise awareness and use all media, including radio, to reach even the most remote areas. “There is a lack of will from the administration in this regard,” he says. Bhatia emphasises the victims’ lack of remedy, saying, “In India, judicial action should be the last choice for anyone, considering that lawsuits often take years to resolve.” As a result, he believes that the banking industry should take on greater responsibility for combating cyber fraud, which is no simple feat.

So, what, as WE, THE PEOPLE OF INDIA, should do?

There is no system like “digital arrest” in the law, this is just a fraud, deceit, lie, our PM Mr Modi emphasised in his Mann Ki Baat, adding that criminals involved in such acts are “enemies of society”. The PM emphasised the need of a collaborative effort and suggested that educational institutions include students in the fight against cybercrime. So, do remember, Real government agencies do not conduct investigations or make arrests via video calls, and Law enforcement does not request payments to dismiss charges.