Cyber slavery case: Accused planned to hire 1k staff in India for honey trapping

Panaji: Talaniti Nulaxi (22), the Kazakhstan national and a native of China who was arrested by the Goa cyber crime police along with two other members of an international trafficking gang running cyber slavery call centres in Southeast Asian countries, had plans to set up a similar call centre in India with a capacity of over 1,000 employees to commit cyber frauds, said Goa Police.

Apart from Nulaxi, the police arrested Adithya Ravichandran (22), a resident of Tamil Nadu, and Rupnarayan Gupta (36), a resident of Mumbai.

Referring to the ongoing investigation, Director General of Police (DGP) Alok Kumar said the accused were planning to recruit women and models under the work-from-home concept for honey trapping.

“The accused had planned to set up call centres in various countries across Asia for financial frauds and honey trapping. They were hiring people for this purpose through Telegram,” he said.

Cyber Crime SP Rahul Gupta said, “Nulaxi was planning to set up a call centre in India. He was looking for a building of 8 to 10 floors that would accommodate around 1,000 to 1,200 persons working in cyber fraud. It is a big network.”

He added that they were also engaged in renting bank accounts and SIM cards and had agents working for this purpose.

Kumar said that the accused were caught from Bengaluru, Mumbai, and Delhi, with the foreign national being arrested at an airport in the capital.

“Swift action by the Goa cyber crime team resulted in the arrest, especially of the foreign national. Otherwise, he would have escaped and later not been found,” said Kumar during a press briefing at the police headquarters in Panaji on Friday.

Recently, 549 Indians trapped in cyber slavery call centres were rescued from Myanmar by the Indian government. One of the victims was from Goa, and based on a complaint filed in the state, an offence related to trafficking was registered.

The victim, an engineering graduate, was forced to contact potential cyber fraud victims in the USA, inducing them to invest in fake trading companies or honey trapping them.

According to the police investigation, Ravichandran was conducting interviews of candidates for these positions in Thailand. He worked under Gupta, who ran Evanka, a recruitment agency in Mulund West, Mumbai, which is not registered with the Ministry of External Affairs. Gupta received candidate details from agents across India and forwarded them for interviews. He also arranged travel for victims to Thailand.

Nulaxi was involved in hiring victims for forced financial fraud using social media platforms such as WhatsApp, Telegram, WeChat, and Zoom. The gang conducted meetings and interviews on Zoom. Police stated that the gang had an international network with agents in multiple countries and had been involved in sending many Indians abroad with false job offers. Investigations into their activities are ongoing.