The Foreign Ministry asked Russians not to talk to strangers in Southeast Asia.

Russians need to be wary of attempts by strangers to establish contact through social media amid cases of kidnapping in Southeast Asia. This was announced on September 17 by the official representative of the department, Maria Zakharova.

"Once again, we would like to urge Russian citizens to be wary of attempts by strangers to establish contact through social networks and messengers," she is quoted as saying on the website of the Russian Foreign Ministry.

She added that attackers can offer users high-paying jobs in the fields of tourism, administration, translation and modeling.

Slave to chat: how Russians end up in Myanmar's fraud centers

Victims are lured into call centers by scammers in Myanmar with the promise of work

On May 7, the Russian Foreign Ministry warned that Russians are advised to be wary of online advertisements for high-paying jobs in the Kingdom of Thailand. The agency added that most often in such cases, the applicant responds to a vacancy not from employers, but from transnational criminal communities.

Myanmar and Cambodia are recognized as the main centers of cyberbullying in the Southeast Asian region. According to Al Jazeera, criminal gangs are actively using a scheme where victims are lured from abroad with promises of fictitious work, and then held against their will.

Recruitment methods are constantly being improved. According to the NY Post, citing a UN report, criminal syndicates in Southeast Asia have begun using generative artificial intelligence and deepfakes. This allows attackers to create the most convincing fraudulent schemes.