Slave to chat: how Russians end up in Myanmar's fraud centers
Sometimes the dream of working in a tropical paradise turns into a concrete cell with guards and monotonous criminal labor in a giant bench factory. Thousands of people from the CIS, including Russians and Belarusians, are being used by phone fraud organizers. A few days ago, the Thai authorities exposed a recruiter who participated in the export of Russian women to work in scam centers. At about the same time, the Russian Embassy in Myanmar reported the abduction of three Russian citizens. Read more about the problem in the Izvestia article.
Headhunter or victim
A Tajik citizen with a residence permit in Russia and who speaks Russian and Chinese in addition to his native language was detained by the authorities of the Kingdom of Thailand on suspicion of recruiting foreigners for scam centers.
The detainee denies his involvement and says that he himself was in captivity. Later, Izvestia correspondents managed to talk to the suspect.
— I was held in Myanmar, I was enslaved, I was just released. <...> The migration service detained me and sent me home,— said Rustam M.
One of the victims was a Russian fashion model, the vice president of the United Coordination Center for the Support of Compatriots Abroad explained to REN TV. Ivan Melnikov. The girl was offered a job in Thailand, and then sent to the city of Yangon in Myanmar, where she was supposed to be interviewed. According to him, about 200 people are being held in the camp.
On December 16, the Russian Embassy in Myanmar confirmed that three Russian citizens had allegedly been abducted and held for forced labor in call centers engaged in fraud.
How slavery works
There are plenty of abduction stories online: victims of modern-day slave traders regularly appear in police reports, talk shows, and social media. They offered a salary of several thousand dollars for working with cryptocurrency or in the tourism or modeling business. We paid for the flight to Dubai (this is the main logistics hub of the criminals), the hotel. Then the options vary. For example, they are sent to Thailand, Myanmar or Cambodia under the pretext of training.
And already there they are deprived of freedom. One of the victims said that immediately upon arrival in Bangkok, he was taken by minibus to a river, transferred to a boat and taken to an unknown destination. The passport has already been taken away on the spot and declared a debtor. Allegedly, the company has spent money and this money will have to be worked off. This is a typical story of a released prisoner from a camp in the Thai border state of Kayin in Myanmar.
Respectable bait
Several cases of missing Russian speakers in Southeast Asia were reported in the media back in 2023. In particular, such stories happened in Pattaya. People were lured to bars, drugged with strong substances, and then taken to Cambodia or Myanmar. The fact is that the police work quite effectively in Thailand, besides, the kingdom's security forces perfectly interact with the Russian authorities and promptly respond to requests from colleagues. Recall that in the summer of this year, the Federation Council ratified the extradition treaty between Russia and Thailand.
Therefore, organized crime has become a favorite in the border areas of Myanmar. But not every foreigner will agree to go to work in this unsafe and poor country. In Thailand today, it is hardly allowed to kidnap a person on the street. Therefore, the involvement occurs through deceptive earnings announcements in an exotic country. The negotiations are conducted by experienced managers, who send fake documents from companies registered, for example, in the UAE or Singapore.
The Domain of Darkness
The final destination where abducted or deceived applicants most often end up is fortified camps in areas controlled by criminal gangs or military formations in Myanmar.
"As a rule, we are talking about the so—called golden triangle, the territory at the junction of the borders of Thailand with Laos and Myanmar (formerly Burma)," a law enforcement source said on condition of anonymity. — Historically, drug syndicates that produced opium and made fabulous profits from the export of prohibited substances had strong positions in these places in the waters of the Mekong and Ruak rivers.
Today, multi-storey barracks with barbed wire have been built here, where hundreds of people are calling around the world around the clock, the expert says.
A criminal product
A lot has already been told about scam farms or fraud centers by the released prisoners. For failure to comply with the plan, the employee will be tortured, beaten, and locked up. A person can be resold to a neighboring camp, where the debt will be charged again.
"The abductees are being forced to engage in Internet fraud and financial fraud, including with cryptocurrencies," a law enforcement source explained. — The funds received are laundered and reinvested in other criminal areas, such as drug trafficking and arms trafficking, creating a vicious and highly profitable criminal cycle.
Be on your guard
It is critically important to raise citizens' awareness of the possible difficulties associated with working abroad, says Ekaterina Gorbunova, curator of the Southeast Asia branch of a large tourism holding company.
— Any tempting "dream jobs" in Southeast Asia, especially with vague conditions and fast registration via instant messengers, should cause extreme caution.
In her opinion, the fight against such cross-border networks is impossible without close coordination of law enforcement agencies and special services of countries whose citizens have suffered from organized crime (such as Russia), transit countries (Thailand) and countries hosting criminal infrastructure (Myanmar). There are already positive examples of such efforts, such as the successful operation to free four Russian citizens in 2025.
Meanwhile, the facts indicate that the problem is becoming systemic in nature, requiring an equally systematic and technological response from the international community.
"It is necessary to strengthen monitoring and countering criminal activity on open job search platforms and in messengers," the expert believes.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
