Security News > 2023 > December > That call center tech scammer could be a human trafficking victim

Human trafficking for the purposes of populating cyber scam call centers is expanding beyond southeast Asia, where the crime was previously isolated.

The latest five-month operation discovered that victims from Malaysia were being trafficked to work in Peruvian call centers and Ugandan victims were being trafficked to Dubai for the same reason, only to be diverted to Thailand and then Myanmar.

Police in Telangana, India, recently registered their first case of human trafficking for the purposes of cyber fraud.

"While the majority of cases remain concentrated in southeast Asia, Operation Storm Makers II offers further evidence that this modus operandi is spreading, with victims sourced from other continents and new scam centers appearing as far afield as Latin America."

Victims of human trafficking for cyber fraud are often lured to countries through fake job adverts but are instead forced to work in scam call centers, pushing cryptocurrency investments, as well as work-from-home, lottery, romance, and online gambling scams.

The latest operation, which carried out more than 270,000 inspections across 450 known trafficking and smuggling hotspots in just four days, also uncovered wider trafficking abuses with some victims barely in their teens.

News URL

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2023/12/08/human_trafficking_for_cyber_scam/