Commenting on the commencement of the Senate Economics Legislative Committee's Scams Prevention Framework inquiry this afternoon, CEO of IJM Australia David Braga said:
"In the fight against scams, the Australian Government should prioritise international policing efforts to counter transnational criminal networks targeting Australians through offshore scam centres," Mr Braga said.
"Tragically, many of these scam centres in Southeast Asia rely on migrant workers who have been trafficked and violently coerced into undertaking sophisticated online scams.
"It is one of the largest growing forms of modern slavery today and currently there is little justice for trafficked workers or their scam victims in Australia and around the world.
"The Australian Federal Police has recently stepped-up efforts addressing offshore scams targeting Australia through the Joint Policing Cybercrime Coordination Centre, however more attention is urgently needed to stop scams at the source.
"A step-up in our international law enforcement response will not only protect Australians from being scammed, but migrant workers from being scammed into a life of forced criminality in offshore scam centres.
"Human traffickers who are profiteering from the misery of the illicit scamming industry should be held to account and victims of trafficking should be released, repatriated and provided with restitution."
