TAIWANESE prosecutors have indicted nine suspects on human trafficking charges for allegedly luring 88 people to Cambodia to toil in online scam syndicates that have become a regional scourge.
Online “boiler room” rackets have long had a presence across South-East Asia but in recent months, more details have emerged of people being trafficked and forced to work.
Victims have reported travelling to Myanmar, Cambodia, Thailand and Laos on false promises of romance or high-paying jobs.
Those indicted in Taiwan include the heads of two human smuggling rings that ran job adverts on social media with promises of “high salaries and easy loans”, the Taipei district prosecutors’ office said in a statement on Friday.
The ads tricked jobless young people and those with financial difficulties into going to Cambodia, the prosecutors added.
Once there, they were handed over to telecom and online fraud rings that forced them to work.
Some were beaten and hit with electric shocks or held for ransom if they refused to obey orders or performed poorly, according to the statement. — AFP
