I was a cyberslave… Man reveals the horrors of being trafficked by Chinese gangs who forced him to scam people online – or be beaten and starved

Rescued cyberslaves have revealed the horrors they experienced as they were forced to run online scams in barbed wire-covered buildings in South Asia.

Cousins ​​from Pakistan were trafficked by Chinese gangs and were unwilling to defraud five people a day or be beaten and starved.

The two men fell victim to a social media job posting that promised them good wages and a comfortable working environment, but they ended up trapped in a Cambodian scam center with more than a thousand other people.

A United Nations report found that more than 200,000 people are being held against their will to run romance investment scams and crypto fraud.

Experts have warned that crime gangs are fueling an ‘explosion’ of human trafficking that is reaching the entire world and netting Chinese criminals $3 trillion a year.

Interpol Secretary General Jurgen Stock said in March: “Driven by online anonymity, inspired by new business models and accelerated by COVID, these organized crime groups are now operating on a scale unthinkable a decade ago.”

About $2 trillion to $3 trillion in illicit proceeds are funneled through the global financial system every year, Stock said, adding that an organized crime group can make $50 billion a year.

The Chinese criminals advertise lucrative jobs with good salaries and ideal working conditions on social media platforms, especially Facebook, in the hope of luring their next victim – which is how two Pakistani men were kidnapped.

Ali and Ahmad were looking for jobs to escape the economic hardships of their home country when they came across an opening for digital marketing positions.

‘I didn’t think long about the offer. They promised to give me a monthly salary of $1,200 and they will reimburse all my expenses, including visa fees and airline tickets,” Ali told the newspaper. International Justice Mission (IJM).

The men were promised jobs in Cambodia and borrowed $4,000 from their families to purchase tourist visas.

Ali and Ahmad traveled to the South Asian country to meet with a broker, who they paid $1,475 each for a work visa before being transported to a facility in Phnom Penh.

They were forced to surrender their passports and cellphones and were put in a room with 60 to 80 people who had also been deceived and trafficked.

There were several floors filled with computers, each with a cyberslave looking for someone to scam, while a responsible man peered over their shoulders to make sure no one was breaking the rules.

“If we break rules, they will deduct $50 from each violation,” Ali said.

‘Unfortunately, I committed two offenses when I tried to call and email our embassy to report our whereabouts. I was not successful. The manager broke my phone and I was physically beaten.

Ali explained that he was paid $1,000 a month when he first started at the scam center, but the payments stopped after the third month.

When he tried to resign, his boss told him he had to find two more employees to take his place.

‘The manager put pressure on the workers to meet their targets. If they try to escape or resist, they are starved and beaten as punishment,” Ali explained.

‘And if they do not meet the quota, the associated fines are deducted from their salary.

He told IJM that he was guilty of taking people’s money, but that he had no other choice.

One of the workers was able to call the Cambodian police hotline so officials could find the secret center and free Ali, Ahmad and five other workers.

‘Leaving the compound was like seeing the light at the end of the tunnel; it was the best thing that happened to me,” Ali said.

Ali and Ahmad’s story emerged last month, but the Indian government revealed in April that it had rescued 250 of its citizens in Cambodia who had been forced into slave labor.

Reports indicate there are more than 5,000 Indians are being held in Cambodia to run cyber fraud schemes.

The victims were mostly young and tech-savvy, similar to Ali and Ahmad, who were both college graduates.

However, Chinese authorities work behind the scenes to catch criminals.

The problem is embarrassing Beijing and discouraging ordinary Chinese from traveling to Southeast Asia for fear of being duped or kidnapped and drawn into a cyber scam operation.

In August 2023, China, Thailand, Laos and Myanmar agreed to set up a joint police operations center to tackle cyber scams in the region.

On October 10, China’s Ministry of Public Security announced that the ‘Summer Operation’ had successfully returned 2,317 fraud suspects from northern Myanmar to China.

The ministry announced that it had arrested 387 “key leaders and backbone” criminals in cyber scam syndicates by the end of September.

It was unclear how many of these criminal gangs came from abroad and from domestic gangs.