New Delhi: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) Tuesday arrested two individuals in connection with the trafficking of Indian youths to the Russia-Ukraine war zone under the pretext of promising them job opportunities. Arun and Yesudas Junior alias Priyan, were arrested from Kerala’s Trivandrum district, bringing the total number of accused in the case to four. Last month, Nijil Jobi Bensam and Anthony Michael Elangovan were also arrested in relation to the same investigation.
The CBI have identified Arun and Priyan as the “primary recruiters” responsible for recruiting Indian youths from Kerala and Tamil Nadu for the Russian Army. The agency also highlighted the key role of Jobi Bensam, who was working as a translator in Russia, in the recruitment process.
Meanwhile, Anthony would get in touch with Dubai-based YouTuber Faisal Abdul Mutalib Khan — known as Baba, the host of the popular channel Baba Vlogs — who would allegedly facilitate visa procurement in Chennai and arrange their travel to Russia. The CBI had booked both Baba and his Thane-based visa consultancy firm in the 6 March FIR filed under Indian Penal Code sections 420 (cheating), 370 (trafficking of persons) and 120B (criminal conspiracy).
The development comes a couple of months after the CBI initiated a case against several travel agencies and visa consultancy firms, and conducted raids across seven cities — Delhi, Thiruvananthapuram, Mumbai, Ambala, Chandigarh, Madurai, and Chennai.
After the raids in March, ThePrint had reported the CBI had estimated that a total of 35 youths were trafficked to the Russia-Ukraine border.
In total, the agency had booked four travel and visa consultancy firms and their directors for human trafficking, and the agency Tuesday maintained the investigation in the case is not over.
“On 06.03.22024, CBI had busted a major human trafficking network running across the country targeting gullible youths on the promise of offering lucrative jobs abroad. These traffickers have been operating as an organised network and were luring Indian nationals through social media channels like YouTube etc, and also through their local contacts/agents for highly paid jobs in Russia,” the agency said Tuesday.
“Thereafter, the trafficked Indian Nationals were trained in combat roles and deployed at front bases in the Russia-Ukraine War Zone against their wishes, thus, putting their lives in grave danger. It has been ascertained that some of the victims also got grievously injured in the war zone. A case of human trafficking was registered against private Visa Consultancy Firms and agents who were involved in trafficking of Indian Nationals to Russia under the guise of better employment and high paying jobs. The human trafficking network of these agents is spread over several States across the country and beyond,” it added.
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