Scammers using AI to target victims in over 100 languages:Indian women sold to scam centres, forced to run love scams under threat of physical abuse

‘Entangle the person in front of you in love in four days’- this is not a movie dialogue, but an order given to those working in Myanmar’s cyber scam centers. Young men and women trafficked from India and several other countries, lured by job promises, are involved in this cyber mega-scam factory that operates by weaponizing trust and emotions in the digital world.
Indians targeted by scammers Among those rescued from one such scam center in Myanmar is Safeer Mohammed Kurimannil, a resident of Kerala. He has returned home, but the memories still haunt him. Kurimannil recounts that he was forced to carry out online scams in a scam compound in Myanmar.
He operated dozens of fake profiles, posing as a 28-year-old Singaporean woman. The goal was to chat with over 100 people per shift, and win their trust and love in four days. Records show that in just one month, he targeted over 50,000 people from 17 countries. According to an investigative report by AP and Frontline, the entire cyber fraud operation runs with the help of American technology and AI. Software built with ChatGPT and Gemini helps scammers communicate in over 100 languages and identify victims’ weaknesses. Kureemannil states that every activity of him and others like him who were lured there was monitored. The fear was so intense that many employees couldn’t even sleep at night.
Women from several countries, including Uganda and Kenya, were brought in under the guise of social media managers or factory jobs and later sold to scam centers. They were forced to work 18 hours a day. People were trapped in romance scams through fake video calls and defrauded in the name of crypto investment.
If a woman failed to meet her fraud ‘target’, she was subjected to physical assault and even gang rape as punishment. Some were forced to have abortions and were tortured even during pregnancy. Reward for successful scammers – ‘Sexual Exploitation’ According to female victims, ‘dark rooms’ have been created in many scam centers. Here, women who failed to meet their targets were taken and subjected to beatings, electric shocks, and rape.
Meanwhile, in some cases, male scammers who facilitated large frauds were permitted to sexually exploit women as a ‘reward’. The United Nations and Amnesty International have also confirmed an increase in such cases.