Mumbai: A 30-year-old resident of Chembur, Priyanka Shivkumar Siddu, was arrested by the Telangana Police’s State Cyber Security Bureau on Friday for her alleged involvement in an international job scam. Police officials said Siddu is accused of trafficking job seekers to Cambodia, where they were forced into executing cybercriminal activities under coercive and harsh conditions.
Siddu's involvement came to light when police rescued two individuals, Akshay Vaidya and his friend Danish Khan, both aged between 22 and 25, from Cambodia. Vaidya, who is Siddu’s nephew, had been seeking job opportunities abroad when Siddu offered him a position in Thailand. Upon hearing about the offer, Khan expressed interest in joining as well.
In his statement to the police, Vaidya said that although Siddu had arranged the job, they discovered while boarding the flight that their destination was Cambodia, not Thailand as promised. Upon arriving in Cambodia, they were made to travel for over 12 hours before reaching a large setup resembling a workspace, where they were trained to carry out cybercrimes. Vaidya also disclosed that the training was led by a man named Jitender Shah, who goes by the alias Amer Khan, and is the director of a company called Zhan Zei, owned by a Chinese national.
The police further revealed that while Vaidya and other Indian nationals were trapped in Cambodia, Siddu allegedly visited the country and struck a deal to send more youths from India, for which she would receive a commission of ₹30,000 per individual.
“It was relatively easy for her to manage this operation as she has a background in recruitment. She previously worked for an overseas job placement agency called Maxwell, giving her a strong understanding of the technicalities involved in sending people abroad for employment,” an official said. Siddu reportedly advertised job opportunities in Thailand, Singapore, and Cambodia through social media and newspapers.
The operations of this job racket came to light in May when the Vizag police arrested three individuals on human trafficking charges. The accused, identified as Chukka Rajesh, Kondala Rao, and Jnaneshwar Rao, were involved in a recruitment business, falsely promising unemployed youths lucrative jobs in Singapore, while sending them to Cambodia.
Their arrests uncovered the true nature of these job schemes. Following this, the Indian embassy in Cambodia launched inquiries, and by the end of the month, over 360 Indian nationals had been rescued or repatriated from Cambodia to India.
The police revealed that the rescued youths had been "coerced into executing cybercrimes and Ponzi schemes controlled by Chinese handlers." Further investigations showed that they were trained to carry out specialised cybercrimes targeting Indian citizens, including stock market scams, task-based scams, FedEx scams, and drugs-in-parcel scams. The rescued individuals confessed that they were forced to sit in dark rooms, subjected to beatings with baseball bats, and deprived of food if they failed to meet targets.
Two Hyderabad residents, Vamsi Krishna and Sai Prasad, were the latest victims to be rescued. They had been sent to Cambodia by Siddu and her associate, Narayan. After her arrest, Siddu was presented in a local magistrate court on for transit remand.
Later, on Friday she was taken to Hyderabad by the police for further interrogation. While in Mumbai, the police team raided her house, which falls under the jurisdiction of Chembur police, seized important items that can be used for interrogation.
