Promised IT role in Bangkok, forced to work as cyber slave in Myanmar: How dream job turned into a nightmare for this Ahmedabad man

While his friend managed to escape before their tormentors could take them to the intended location, this man saw his passport being seized and his movement being constantly tracked by his so-called employers. The man was finally allowed to leave after his family in India paid a ransom of Rs 3.5 lakh against his release.

The Ahmedabad man, whose name has been withheld by the police to protect his identity, is not the only one from Gujarat to have borne this ordeal in recent times. Several unsuspecting young men from India and other South East Asian countries are being lured with job offers in Thailand and Cambodia, which then turn out to be scams as part of which they are kept captive and turned into cyber slaves, running fraud schemes for criminal syndicates.

Earlier this year, three men from Dhoraji town in Rural Rajkot managed to return home after much difficulty from what appears to be the same cybercrime hub located at KK Park area of Myawaddy Township in Myanmar, situated on the border with Thailand, from where the Ahmedabad man also made his way back to India.

On June 7, the Ahmedabad City Cybercrime Police filed an FIR under Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) sections 127(4), 127(7), 143(3), 316(2), 61(2) and Section 66(d) of the IT Act. These sections include those for human trafficking and illegal confinement, among other crimes.

The police said that the man’s ordeal had lasted for a month-and-a-half, starting on April 6 and ending on May 22. Two accused, Abhishek Singh and Kinjal Shah, have been booked in the case. While Shah was arrested on Sunday from Ahmedabad, Singh is on the run and is said to be in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE).

The complainant and his friend came in touch with Singh who promised them jobs in Bangkok, even making them sit for video interviews. They were asked to fly to Thailand. However, once they reached Suvarnabhumi Airport, the duo were put in a car, and taken to Tak City, which is 450 km to the north.

During a break on this journey, the complainant’s friend sensed something amiss and managed to give the group a miss. He subsequently returned to India, said ACP Hardik Makadiya of the Ahmedabad Cybercrime Police.
The complainant in this case was then driven to the jungle to the east of Tak City and made to cover a distance of 15-20 km on foot. The group then crossed a water body, likely the Moei river, also known as Thaungyin river, by boat, and arrived at the KK Park area of Myawaddy Township where the complainant was supposed to get training to commit cybercrimes. When he refused to do so, he was threatened with being implicated for illegally crossing the border, said police. The man was then coerced into signing a contract to work for his captors, which mentioned a fine of Rs 3.5 lakh for not keeping his side of the bargain. When he tried to run away, he was confined in a room for five days, said police. After the five-day period, the man’s captors told him that he could return to India if his family paid up to Rs 3.5 lakh.

After his family paid the amount through a UPI app, the complainant was made to delete all the incriminating evidence from his phone before being taken across the border to Thailand on May 21. He then reached Mae Sot City and from there to Bangkok, before catching a flight back to India.

Similarities in Ahmedabad and Rajkot cases:

A number of experiences shared by this victim are similar to those narrated by the Rajkot men who had gone to Thailand in December 2024. These include:

1. The recruiter: In the Ahmedabad case, the two men were lured into cyber slavery by Singh, who, ACP Makadiya said, had previously worked at the scam site in Myanmar but had come back to India and was working to recruit people on commission basis.

In the Rajkot case, the four accused included a man named Mehul alias Martin, who had allegedly worked at the same site in KK Park and had then travelled between Rajkot, Bangkok and Dubai, said ASP Simran Bhardwaj. He had recruited up to eight youths from districts in the Saurashtra region.

2. The journey and scam site: ASP Bhardwaj said that in several statements taken by the Rajkot Rural Police, the victims described the journey from the Bangkok airport to the jungle and then crossing into Myanmar without being aware of having crossed the international border.

The same stories of passports being seized, close surveillance and very little leeway to escape from the KK Park area were repeated in the Ahmedabad case. Police described the area as a cosmopolitan site with people from various south East Asian countries working on the cyber fraud ecosystem, either willingly or by force.

3. Aliases and lack of evidence

Most of the people from the cybercrime syndicate, which the returning victims have named before the police, are aliases without any precedents in crime databases. This is a major problem faced by local police who are investigating the matter.

Sources told The Indian Express that while help is obtained from the Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre (I4C) and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), tracking international syndicate members from the fake names told by victims and the lack of any other evidence such as photos of videos, with the victims’ phones being formatted before they are released, has made it difficult to pin down the criminals.

There is also the matter of delay in filing complaints. In the Ahmedabad case, the complainant who returned in May filed the complaint only in June. In the Rajkot case, the trio approached the police in April – three months after returning in January.

4. Victims or collaborators?

It is hard to distinguish between genuine victims and people who worked at these scam sites of their own free will, said police. “While several have returned, most of them don’t come forward to report this, or there isn’t enough evidence to file an FIR. It is also hard to distinguish between those who went there to work willingly and those who were tricked and held against their will,” said ACP Makadiya.

In Rajkot, ASP Bhardwaj said, “Since most of these victims, including the three who returned in January, had come back within a month of going to Thailand, it can be believed that they were tricked and forced.”