Thousands lured by fake job offers; Interpol warns of imminent threat to public safety

SINGAPORE – Tens of thousands of people have been lured to criminal hubs in South-east Asia through fake job offers posted by scam syndicates in large-scale human trafficking schemes.

Interpol on Wednesday issued an Orange Notice to its 195 member countries on what it called a “global human trafficking crisis”. The warning means there is a serious and imminent threat to public safety. In the warning, Interpol said criminal groups lure victims on social networks and recruitment sites with false promises of lucrative job opportunities.

These people are then kidnapped and detained in inhuman living conditions, and often beaten and sexually abused.

They are also forced into criminal activities, including investment fraud, love scams and frauds linked to cryptocurrency investing and online gambling.

Acting coordinator of Interpol’s Human Trafficking and Migrant Smuggling Unit, Mr Isaac Espinoza, told The Straits Times on Wednesday that the groups are exploiting people who lost their jobs amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

“It is challenging a lot of preconceptions of human trafficking, (that) victims are people who are in very vulnerable situations… These criminal groups are now targeting people who are actually highly qualified, people who have university degrees, who are trained in IT and who are tech-savvy,” he said, adding that anyone can fall victim.

Mr Espinoza added: “As the authorities started taking action and raiding the centres and disrupting the business, they instantly adapted and started moving to other neighbouring countries, to Myanmar, to Laos.”

The first reports of the scheme came in 2021, and Interpol said it has since observed the growing criminal phenomenon of large-scale human trafficking where victims are forced to commit cyber-enabled financial crime on an industrial scale.

In the early stages, Interpol said the victims were Mandarin-speaking people from China, Malaysia, Thailand or Singapore, who were enticed to travel to other countries in the region for work.

Mr Espinoza said that English-speaking victims have now been targeted as well.

The online scam centres were initially concentrated in Cambodia, but were later also identified in Laos and Myanmar. Hubs have since been located in at least four more Asian countries.

Original Source