Indonesia’s Scam Industry Repatriation: Victims, or Digital Mercenaries?

The repatriation of Indonesians from Cambodia’s scam industry cannot be reduced to a simple narrative of human trafficking. Field realities reveal a complex spectrum of culpability that the current policy fails to address. 

Dr. Pratama Persadha

Broadly, these individuals fall into three categories: genuine victims recruited through deception and abuse; "adaptors" who eventually embraced the criminal system for financial gain; and conscious operators who joined these transnational syndicates fully aware of their illicit nature.

Indonesia’s fundamental error lies in treating all returnees uniformly as victims. While this approach appears humane, it is strategically flawed. By simplifying a sophisticated criminal enterprise into a single narrative of victimhood, Jakarta risks obscuring the role of active perpetrators. This lack of differentiation weakens deterrence, creates moral hazard, and provides a safe harbor for syndicates to continue their recruitment drives across the archipelago.

Distinguishing victims from perpetrators requires more than just confessions; it demands rigorous investigative tools. Authorities must deploy digital forensics, behavioral analysis, and financial tracing. Through forensic profiling, investigators can examine scam scripts, access to victim management panels, and crypto-wallet ownership. These digital footprints—alongside internal performance rankings and reward mechanisms—clearly indicate whether an individual was a passive victim or a willing participant.

This technical scrutiny must be paired with cognitive interviews by forensic psychologists. While genuine victims often exhibit deep trauma and a lack of technical mastery, conscious perpetrators typically demonstrate a sophisticated understanding of social engineering and money laundering. Financial flows offer the final proof: tracking commissions and recruitment networks in Indonesia reveals who functioned as a "digital slave" and who operated as a structured criminal node.

Consequently, government policy must pivot from mass, undifferentiated repatriation toward a layered screening system. Every returnee should undergo mandatory digital forensic examination and intelligence-led interviews. The legal response must integrate cybercrime, human trafficking, and money laundering statutes. For those proven to be willing participants, social rehabilitation is insufficient; they must face firm criminal prosecution.

From a national security standpoint, these returnees are valuable intelligence assets. They can help map syndicate structures, domestic recruitment channels, and regional financial hubs. However, the state’s primary focus must be the domestic command centers—server operators, recruiters, and digital logistics coordinators. Without dismantling these local nodes, the industry will continue to regenerate regardless of how many workers are brought home.

Jakarta needs a new doctrine that distinguishes between victims of "digital trafficking" and "digital mercenaries." The former require protection, while the latter represent a non-military threat to national security. This distinction aligns with international practices in countries like South Korea, Japan, and the Philippines, where victim status is not granted automatically if participation was intentional.

China’s approach serves as a notable example of this legal logic. By clearly separating victims from professional operators and prosecuting the latter for transnational cybercrime, they have created a tangible strategic deterrent. Indonesia can emulate this logic—adjusted to its own human rights framework—by utilizing extraterritorial principles and bilateral cooperation to collapse these recruitment networks.

Without this shift in approach, Indonesia risks becoming a permanent supplier of criminal labor for regional syndicates. The country is no longer just a victim; it is becoming part of the global cybercrime ecosystem. The response, therefore, must move beyond humanitarianism to integrate law enforcement and cyber intelligence. Only by punishing conscious perpetrators and protecting genuine victims can the state dismantle the scam industry at its roots.

By: Dr. Pratama Persadha, Chairman, CISSReC (Communication and Information System Security Research Center)