Uttar Pradesh

• 30 Nov 2024

NIA to Probe Human-Trafficking Syndicate

Why in News?

Recently, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) carried out searches across 22 locations in six states as part of an investigation into a human-trafficking syndicate that entices youth to work in call centers involved in cyber fraud.

Key Points

• The searches were conducted in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, and other regions.
  • It originates from a police report filed in Gopalganj, Bihar which involves an organized syndicate that lures and traffics Indian youth to foreign countries under the pretense of providing jobs.
• Trafficked individuals were coerced into working in fake call centers. These call centers were involved in conducting cyber fraud operations.
• Human Trafficking:
  • It refers to the illegal trade and exploitation of people, typically for the purposes of forced labour, sexual exploitation, or involuntary servitude.
  • It involves the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring, or receipt of individuals through threat, force, coercion, abduction, fraud, or deception for the purpose of exploiting them.

National Investigation Agency (NIA)

• About:
  • The NIA is the Central Counter-Terrorism Law Enforcement Agency of India mandated to investigate all the offences affecting the sovereignty, security and integrity of India. It includes:
    • Friendly relations with foreign states.
    • Against atomic and nuclear facilities.
    • Smuggling of arms, drugs and fake Indian currency and infiltration from across the borders.
    • The offences under the statutory laws enacted to implement international treaties, agreements, conventions and resolutions of the United Nations, its agencies and other international organisations.
  • It was constituted under the National Investigation Agency (NIA) Act, 2008.
  • The agency is empowered to deal with the investigation of terror related crimes across states without special permission from the states under written proclamation from the Ministry of Home Affairs.
• Headquarters: New Delhi