Sreeparna Banerjee
The rapid expansion of cybercrime and online scam networks across mainland Southeast Asia has emerged as one of the most complex non-traditional security challenges confronting the region today. What initially appeared as a digital and financial crime problem blurred the line between human slavery and organised transnational cybercrimes. For India, whose citizens are primary targets of online scams and victims of cyber slavery and are also at times complicit in the crime, this trend poses direct human security and diplomatic challenges. Within this context, India–Thailand cooperation, embedded in the broader Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) framework, assumes renewed strategic relevance as Thailand functions as a geographic gateway, key enforcement partner, and bridge within ASEAN, enabling India to address these networks more effectively at their source, transit corridors, and digital nodes rather than responding only reactively.
Beyond financial fraud, these operations increasingly generate multidimensional human security risks. Individuals trafficked into scam compounds face threats to their personal security through confinement, violence, and coercion, while victims of online fraud experience significant economic insecurity through large financial losses. At the same time, deceptive recruitment practices targeting young jobseekers and migrants expose structural vulnerabilities within digital labour markets and migration pathways across Asia.
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