The international law enforcement agency on Monday unveiled details of the operation, which found hot spots for this type of crime in South America and the Middle East.
Forced labor in the service of cyber crime has typically been more confined to Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar, since Interpol first started tracking it in 2021.
More than 100 people were rescued from one set of traffickers - Brazilians who believed they were accepting cryptocurrency jobs with good wages, bonuses, food and housing.
When the victims showed up for their first day on the job, they were forced into working for cyber investment scam operations and not allowed to leave.
Federal police also froze $286,000 in criminal proceeds belonging to a criminal crew running cyber scam centers in Cambodia.
Officers from Interpol's Human Trafficking and Smuggling of Migrants unit were deployed to the land border in Tabatinga, Brazil, and to the Darien Gap between Colombia and Panama.
These cops used Interpol-issued mobile devices for real-time checks against the organizations' newly live global databases of facial and fingerprint scans.
In all, Operation Turquesa V saw police in 33 countries conduct over 850,000 checks at major transit points in the US and Canada frequented by people smugglers between November 27 and December 1.
Interpol revealed that this year's effort shows an increase in migration patterns from China, which is now the third most prevalent country of origin for these irregular migrants - with Venezuela and Ecuador in first and second places, respectively.
In one case cited, a passport check conducted on the Caribbean island nation Curaçao flagged a passenger arriving from the Dominican Republic as a potential migrant smuggler.
The man claimed to be part of a traveling softball team, despite not carrying any uniforms or equipment in his bags.
This included a dozen children, including one six-year-old, who were rescued in Honduras.
Turquesa V followed a different Interpol-led operation, Storm Makers II, which also led to hundreds of arrests and the rescue of more than 140 individuals who were being trafficked to work in call centers as part of cyber fraud operations.
This Cyber News was published on go.theregister.com. Publication date: Tue, 12 Dec 2023 07:13:05 +0000