Abducted in Thailand and Forced to Scam
Reuters | Oly, an East African IT consultant, flew from Ethiopia to Thailand to meet a friend. He planned to spend five nights in Bangkok. He ended up in Southeast Asia for five months.
After landing, Oly was escorted through the airport by people who knew him by name, appeared to be airport or government employees, and ushered him through customs.
They told him they had a car to take him to his hotel. Instead, after driving for more than an hour, they handed the car off to armed men. They took him across the border to a scam compound in Myanmar.
The illustrated story includes Oly’s abduction, experience in the compound, escape, and life in the rescue camps. It also includes much more detail about people who were tricked into traveling to Thailand, but ended up trapped in Myanmar scam compounds and forced to work as scammers.
According to the United Nations, hundreds of thousands of people from dozens of countries have made similar journeys and found themselves in scam centers across Southeast Asia.
Kenya’s ambassador to Thailand told Reuters that hundreds of Kenyan citizens rescued from Myanmar scam centers also describe being escorted through Thai airports by officials.
In a similar case, an Indonesian man’s new employer instructed him to send a photo of what he was wearing via Telegram so immigration agents could identify him in line at the Bangkok airport. He ended up in KK Park, a massive scam compound on the Myanmar-Thailand border.
Trigger warning: The original article includes descriptions and illustrations of violence the victims experienced at the compound.
Full article: Scammed into Scamming