On the phone, his recruiter was reassuring: Of course, they were headed to Thailand. The office was just across the Moei river in a rural area of Thailand – just as the job description had said.
Only a few weeks ago, Namburi, a 33-year-old computer science graduate from Hyderabad, and three of his friends had been recruited to work for HaoTai International Group, a company operating a “blockchain digital currency” in Thailand. Their recruiter was an Indian, who went by the name of Srinivas or Sree, and had reached out to Namburi on Telegram. The pay was good—$2,000 a month, food and accommodation included. And so, they made the journey from Hyderabad on 25 August—first to Bangkok, and then via a long car ride over 500-600 km to Mae Sot, a city by the Moei river.
But just as they crossed the river and docked on the other bank, a message popped up on Namburi’s phone: “Welcome to Myanmar”.
Namburi and his friends had been trafficked—to one of the most lawless regions of Myanmar, a country in the grip of conflict. They were not alone.
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Thousands of men and women from countries like China, Indonesia, Japan, Turkey, Ukraine, Brazil, Kenya, and South Africa have also reportedly been victims of similar hiring scams, making it a global trafficking problem of…
