Surat police bust cyber slavery racket; 3 held for trafficking job seekers to Myanmar

SUrat, The constabulary in Gujarat's Surat feature busted a "cyber slaveholding" racquet by stunning three persons allegedly involved in trafficking job seekers to Myanmar, an official said on Monday. As per preliminary probe, the accused — one from Uttarakhand and two from Gujarat — had allegedly sent 52 unsuspecting unemployed youths from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Ethiopia to Myanmar, where they were forced to work for cyber criminals. Cyber slavery refers to a form of digital exploitation where individuals are trafficked or coerced — often through fraud or force — into performing cybercrimes such as online scams, phishing or fraud operations, typically under abusive and inhumane conditions. Based on a tip-off, the Surat police apprehended the mastermind, Nirav Chaudhary , a native of Uttarakhand, his associates Preet Kamani from Zirakpur in Punjab, and Ashish Rana from Surat on Sunday, an official release stated. Kamani is a native of Gondal city in Rajkot, while Rana hails from Vyara taluka of Tapi district. The cyber crime cell had recently launched a probe into information that human traffickers were luring unemployed youngsters with lucrative job offers overseas and sending them to Myanmar, where they are forced to work for firms run by Chinese cyber criminals. The police then zeroed in on the three accused, who have been arrested on the charges of cheating, wrongful confinement, human trafficking of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and relevant provisions of the Information Technology Act, the release stated. Investigations have revealed that Chaudhary, a college dropout, travelled to Myanmar in 2023 to work for a Chinese firm involved in cyber frauds, such as trapping wealthy people using fake Facebook IDs and convincing them to invest in a fraudulent scheme, police said. A few months later, he joined another such firm as a human resource consultant, and he then returned to India and started luring unemployed youth and trafficking them to Myanmar, where they were forced to work for these gangs, the release said. With the help of his associates Kamani and Rana, Chaudhary had sent 52 persons to Myanmar, including three from Gujarat. Police said that the victims were first taken to Thailand, from where they were trafficked into Myanmar by making them cross a river along the border. The victims were told that they would be given tasks like talking to customers over the phone or copying data on a computer. While Chaudhary allegedly received ₹3 lakh as commission for each person he trafficked to Myanmar, his associates Kamani and Rana got ₹40,000 to ₹50,000 per person, the release stated. This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.