Durian. In 2024, the government of Indonesia succeed handling 3,354 online scam cases linked to Indonesians, 183 of them are indicated related human trafficking besides the online scam operators change their recruitment method.
“We see that currently the recruitment and replacement processes are more advance. There is a scheme that we called ‘exchange heads’. More cases (found) where victims must recruit their replacements be be freed from online scammer networks,” Deputy Foreign Minister Arrmanatha Nasir said on Thursday, 13 Feb. 2025 in Jakarta.
He explained that the government of Indonesia puts serious attention on people smuggling issues, categorized into two main categories – traditional way and online scam – in which the ministry’s data in 2024 shows 58.3 percent from total or equal with 183 cases, linked to online scam crimes.
From 2020 to 2024, Indonesia has handled 6,771 cases related to online scaling from seven ASEAN member countries – Cambodia, Philippines, Laos, Thailand, Myanmar, Malaysia and Vietnam respectively from the largest number of cases.
From January to November 2024, the government of Indonesia has handled 2,692 online scam cases from Cambodia and 429 cases from Myanmar linked to Indonesian nationals.
Several ASEAN countries become “safe heaven” for human trafficking, linked to online scamming, but the regional group has yet taken any firm action or imposed agreement to handle the particular issue.
Meanwhile, protection of Indonesians overseas, including migrant workers is still on the top priority issue of the government. (***)
