TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — The government on Tuesday (Aug. 23) opened the International Workshop on Combating Human Trafficking to discuss tactics in the fight against regional fraud rings.

The practice came to the fore as hundreds of Taiwanese citizens were believed to have been drawn to countries including Cambodia and Myanmar with offers of high-paying jobs which turned out to be work for fraud rings.

The National Immigration Agency (NIA) invited the ambassadors of the Marshall Islands and of Tuvalu as well as representatives of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) for the workshop Tuesday, where they were joined by 300 guests, UDN reported.

Government officials pointed out that while the COVID-19 pandemic had caused a decline in human trafficking as travel had become more difficult, online fraud had expanded during the same period.

Members of the public should be extremely careful with job offers online, on Facebook or in LINE groups promising high salaries, easy work, and free air travel and food, because often, such work overseas could end in captivity and even torture, officials warned. The government said it was taking measures starting with prevention and persuasion while also trying to root out the fraud rings.

Discussions at the workshop focused on new methods human traffickers were employing during the pandemic and on designing more effective ways of countering their efforts.