Five local people have been lured to Southeast Asian countries and Taiwan since September under the guise of high-paying job offers, only to find themselves embroiled in fraudulent activities, a Judiciary Police (PJ) spokesperson said in a press conference on Friday.
According to the spokesperson, the victims are three men and two women, including a 16-year-old male student. Four of them became tools for scam operations and were arrested by local police in the respective country, while a 38-year-old woman recognised the scam in time and managed to escape after being tricked into going to Cambodia.
The spokesperson said that criminal groups typically recruit job seekers through two main methods: one approach involves posting enticing job advertisements on social media, promising high salaries along with meals, accommodation, and airfares covered, while the other method involves directly targeting individuals who express interest in participating in fraudulent activities abroad, also offering to pay for their flights and accommodation.
Once these individuals arrive at their destinations, they are coerced into surrendering their mobile phones and passports, the spokesperson said, adding that the groups then provide them with new phones to cut off communication and prevent them from reporting the situation to others.
Upon their arrival, the victims would be forced to engage in various types of scams, including money transportation and acting as customer service representatives for telecommunications fraud, the spokesperson said, adding that they are often threatened with imprisonment if they refuse to comply.
The spokesperson said that PJ officers are urging residents to look for jobs in legal employment agencies and to avoid giving personal information to strangers, and refuse to assist in receiving and transporting unidentified money, and do not trust the network or strangers’ recruitment messages.
This graphic provided by the Judiciary Police (PJ) in a press conference on Friday explains the fraudster’s modus operandi.
