India’s Central Bureau of Investigation has arrested a Mumbai-based man identified as a key figure in a transnational network that trafficked Indian nationals into cyber-fraud operations in Myanmar. The suspect, Sunil Nellathu Ramakrishnan, also known as Krish, was taken into custody on Thursday upon his return to India. The CBI announced the arrest in an official statement the same day.
According to the agency, Ramakrishnan orchestrated the movement of victims from Delhi to Bangkok under the false promise of legitimate employment in Thailand, before redirecting them to cyber-fraud compounds in Myanmar’s Myawaddy region. One facility central to the operation is known as KK Park. Once there, victims were compelled to carry out digital arrest scams, romance frauds, and cryptocurrency investment schemes targeting people around the world, including within India.
Those held at the compounds were subjected to wrongful confinement, physical abuse, and severe restrictions on their freedom of movement. Searches conducted at Ramakrishnan’s residence uncovered digital evidence connecting him to trafficking operations in both Myanmar and Cambodia. The CBI noted that several Indian nationals had managed to escape the compounds and were repatriated from Thailand in March and November of last year.
Interviews conducted with those repatriated victims provided the intelligence that ultimately led investigators to identify and arrest Ramakrishnan. The CBI said it is continuing to pursue other individuals connected to the network, including foreign nationals, and is working to determine the full scope of operations across Myanmar and Cambodia. Southeast Asian scam compounds, which rely heavily on trafficked labor, have grown into one of the largest organized cybercrime industries globally.
Vedang Vatsa, Founder of Hashtag Web3, told Decrypt that the case highlights a broader opportunity to strengthen crypto forensics capacity. He noted that blockchain tracing tools are increasingly being used in investigations worldwide and that Indian agencies are well-positioned to incorporate them into existing frameworks. Deeper collaboration with analytics firms could help map wider financial networks beyond individual arrests, he added.
Krishnendu Chatterjee, CEO and co-founder of A2ZCryptoInvestment, said the arrest disrupts fraudulent schemes targeting Indian citizens and indirectly supports the health of India’s broader crypto ecosystem by reducing fraud risks and encouraging legitimate adoption. The arrest comes amid growing international attention on scam compound networks. Last November, Interpol formally classified such networks as a transnational criminal threat affecting victims from more than 60 countries, placing crypto-related fraud at the center of the industry.
In January, Chinese authorities executed 11 members of the Ming family crime clan, which operated scam centers in northern Myanmar, generating more than $1.4 billion in fraudulent proceeds and linked to the deaths of at least 14 Chinese nationals. Last month, the U.S. Attorney for D.C. announced that its Scam Center Strike Force had frozen and seized more than $580 million in cryptocurrency from networks operating across Burma, Cambodia, and Laos. A U.S. federal court also sentenced pig butchering organizer Daren Li to 20 years in prison for his role in a $73 million crypto fraud scheme conducted from scam centers in Cambodia, after he fled by cutting off an electronic monitoring device.
Originally reported by Decrypt.
