In a major crackdown on cyber-trafficking, the Cyber Centre of Excellence (CCoE) in Gandhinagar has arrested Payal Chauhan, an alleged key agent of an international cyber-slavery racket operating from Vadodara’s Undera and Gorwa areas.
According to officials, Chauhan lured young Gujaratis with offers of high-paying jobs abroad and, with support from Pakistani handlers, helped move them to Southeast Asia. Once overseas, the victims were intercepted by members of a Chinese gang, who seized their documents and smuggled them across the Moei River into Myanmar’s notorious KK Park in Myawaddy.
There, they were confined in Chinese-run illegal complexes and forced to work as “cyber slaves” in online fraud operations such as phishing, crypto scams, Ponzi schemes and romance fraud. Those who resisted were allegedly tortured and kept in illegal detention.
Chauhan reportedly worked under the main accused, Nilesh alias Neel Purohit, arranging flight tickets for victims under the pretext of data-entry jobs. Investigators also found passport details of Pakistani and Nepali nationals on her phone, pointing to wider international links. She was additionally involved in supplying mule accounts, running betting operations, managing gaming IDs and handling crypto activity linked to syndicates in Dubai and Goa.
Following the exposure of this network, India, Thailand and Myanmar carried out joint Army-led rescue missions, rescuing nearly 4,000 Indians from cyber-crime camps over the past three years.