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Papua New Guinea police rescued 39 Indonesians believed to have been trafficked to work in a cyber scam compound, the first case of its kind uncovered in the Pacific island nation.
Four Chinese nationals were also detained in connection with the Tuesday raid in the country’s capital, Port Moresby, PNG police Commissioner David Manning told OCCRP.
“What we did find in there was 39 Indonesian citizens, 34 that were male and five females, all adults but they’ve been in very cramped, very cramped conditions,” Manning said.
Manning also said police seized a large number of documents and electronic devices from the property, a house in Port Moresby’s inner suburbs. He said the incident was the first case he was aware of involving the suspected trafficking of foreign nationals into the country to carry out online fraud.
He added that as far as he is aware Papua New Guinea was the final destination for the suspected trafficking victims.
“All indications are they were brought in specifically to run this scam from Papua New Guinea,” he said.
Senior Asia Advisor at the International Crisis Group, Richard Horsey, told OCCRP that the raid adds PNG to a growing list of smaller developing countries—including Timor-Leste, Madagascar and Sri Lanka—that are being newly infiltrated by global cybercrime and human trafficking groups responsible for hundreds of billions of dollars of fraud every year.
“The risk is that PNG will become a destination of choice [for scamming syndicates] because the state has limited capacity to fight against this. The amount of money that criminal syndicates can bring in is enormous compared to a small island state or Pacific state,” Horsey said.
Manning called the development a worrying trend, urging the public to remain vigilant against suspicious activity in their community.
