‘How we were made slaves in Myanmar and how we escaped’

A month after escaping from the clutches of cyber criminals in a Myanmar conflict zone, 13 residents of Tamil Nadu underwent 28 days of detention in Mae Sot and Bangkok before being brought to India. This was due to various procedural delays the victims were not aware of.

Sharing their ordeal with The Federal, Muthamizhselvi (name changed), a civil engineering graduate from Ariyalur district, who had been held captive by cyber criminals since July 1, said the Myanmar military rescued them and then left them after crossing River Moei – on the Myanmar-Thailand border — late in August.

“We did not have any money. They gave us 20,000 Thai baht (about ₹44,000) and asked 16 of us to escape somehow. It was a dense forest and we did not know in which direction to go. There was no signal in any of our phones. We did not think we would survive,” shared Muthamizhselvi.

Also read: Centre ignored red flags as Indians were made ‘cyber slaves’ in Myanmar

Muthamizhselvi and 15 others somehow managed to cross the dense forest by hiking 10 km from the Moei and reached a main road, where they were detained by the Thai military.

Lured by a job in Dubai

Muthamizhselvi was among the 13 people who returned to Tamil Nadu at 2 am on October 5. All of them had been promised a job in Dubai at different times. However, they were taken to Thailand and later illegally trafficked to Myanmar, where they were held hostage as slaves by cyber criminals in a conflict zone for more than a month.

“I gave ₹1 lakh to an agent here (in India) and he assured me of a job in Dubai. He sent me to Dubai with a tourist visa on June 16. There, I was asked to contact another agent, who treated me quite well and asked me to wait for a while to join the company. After 15 days, he said the vacancy was in Thailand and that I should move there. They handled all the documentation and visa process for Thailand,” Muthamizhselvi said.

Muthamizhselvi, who went alone to Dubai, found six other men joining her there — they were also promised jobs in Dubai.

“All was good. They booked a business class ticket for us. Once we reached Bangkok, we got a message in our common WhatsApp group with the details of the car that would pick us up. The car picked us from the airport and we travelled around 8 hours. We thought we were being taken to the company. The Chinese woman who accompanied us couldn’t understand anything that we said because she didn’t know English,” shared Prasanth, a native of Kanyakumari, who specialises in welding technology.

According to the victims, all of them were taken to Mae Sot, a city in Thailand bordering Myanmar.

A boat ride across border

“Later, we were asked to shift to a Jeep, which took us inside a dense forest in the middle of the night…we were then asked to get into a boat. When we asked them why we were taking a boat, the person on the boat told us that the road route would be long and that it was a short cut. We could not check the location, since there was no network on any of our phones,” Prasanth said.

When asked whether they did not suspect anything, another techie, who was also held captive, said that they were treated in such a way that they could not suspect them at all. “The people who accompanied us carried our luggage. They did not even let us carry anything that we took with us. So, we thought it was the company’s arrangement,” he recalled.

However, all of them came to know that they were in Myanmar only after reaching the company building, which was 10 minutes from the other side of River Moei, bordering Thailand and Myanmar.

Slaves’ lives

Once they were ensnared, the techies were treated differently. Irrespective of their educational and professional background, all of them were forced to lure customers for cryptocurrency investments through dating, matrimonial and social media applications.

Also read: 3 Mumbai residents held captive in Myanmar after being lured with job offers: Police

“We were put up in a place which was fully guarded by armed men. All our phones were taken away. They gave us separate computers and four iPhones each and forced us to lure customers to invest. If we didn’t get any customers for investment, we would be punished, which included standing for hours, running around a 3-km-long ground for 20 times…they also threatened us that they would give us electric shocks if we didn’t obey,” said Muthamizhselvi.

“However, there was Akshay Sharma, a native of Punjab, who was already trapped and was questioning the company for its illegal activity and holding us captive. It was only then the company people told us that they had purchased us for $5,000 as slaves and they would let us free only if we could pay them the money,” she recounted. 

Escape to Thailand

Akshay, along with his brother, managed to pay them the money and escape to India. He, in turn, helped the other Indians held captive by the cyber criminals.

Muthamizhselvi and 15 others  — who were arrested by the Thailand military late in August after the Myanmar military rescued them and left them alone after crossing the Moei  — were detained for two days at a prison in Mae Sot. Ater the Indians explained that they were victims of human trafficking and not traffickers themselves, they were shifted to the Immigration Detainee Centre.

“But, because of language issues, we could only do that much and they told us that they would let us go only if we paid a fine of 4,000 Thai baht. We were ready to pay the fine and we told the same in the court. We had the money thanks to our ATM cards. But they said that cards were not allowed…they didn’t negotiate further and detained us in the detainee centre in Mae Sot for two weeks,” Prasanth told The Federal.

From Mae Sot to Bangkok

After two weeks at Mae Sot, all 16 of them were taken to Bangkok, where after an inquiry by immigration officials they were taken to a detention centre along with 450 people with criminal backgrounds.

“It was a detention centre for criminals and it was not safe at all. There were just four toilets for 450 of us. That’s when we released a video seeking help and only then we started getting help from the Tamil community in Thailand, who also could give us good food once a day. Only after that video, the Tamil Nadu government came to know about us and we saw something was happening for our release,” shared Prasanth.

Also read: India must rethink Myanmar policy as junta loses grip over territory

While 13 Tamils managed to get released from the Bangkok detention centre with the help of the state government, the other three persons with them managed to secure a release after paying money with the help of agents, and reached India a couple of weeks ago.

All 13 landed in Chennai on Wednesday and were sent to their respective districts. Tamil Nadu Non-Resident Tamils Welfare, Refugees & Evacuees Minister KS Masthan said that they would initiate an investigation with the inputs from the victims and would track the fake agents and book them as per law.