The trafficking victims forced into online scamming

One day in June 2022, Andra, 27, called the number listed on a Facebook a job posting for an 'operator' position at an online trading company in Thailand. 

"I was interested in applying for the job because of the salary offered," Andra, who changed his name for security reasons, told FairPlanet. The position offered a monthly salary of USD 1,000 (approximately IDR 15.8 million), which is significantly higher than Indonesia's average salary range of IDR 2.9 million to 5.1 million, as reported by the national statistics agency.

In addition to a competitive salary, the job included perks like accommodation and four meals a day. And with a background as a freelance marketer for a startup, Andra found the offer quite promising.

Two days after contacting the recruiter, he was invited for a phone interview.

"The person who interviewed me said that the job requires someone who can type quickly," he said.

At first he was skeptical. But two days later, after being notified that he had gotten the job and that all travel expenses from Indonesia to Bangkok would be covered by the recruiter, Andra's suspicions began to fade.

He then flew from North Sumatra's Kualanamu Airport to Jakarta, where he stayed at a hotel for one night, and finally flew to Bangkok. There, he stayed one night at a hotel and waited to be picked up. 

When he was picked up at 22:00 the next day, Andra realised that another person, who appeared to have come from India, was being picked up from the same hotel. The two of them were taken on a six-hour journey to Mae Sot, a city in western Thailand. There, they stayed another night waiting to be picked up the next morning and taken by boat across the river to a place which he later discovered was 'KK Park'.

"The place is in a rather remote area, the weather there is quite cool, he said, describing what he called a "human trafficking zone."

"The place is surrounded by a high wall with barbed wire. The entrance is guarded by armed soldiers; the area is more than twice the size of a football field, and there are a number of mess halls and semi-permanent buildings." 

Upon his arrival Andra met someone who claimed to be the recruiter's subordinate. He was briefed for more than two hours before being placed in a dormitory.

At the dormitory, he met two or three people from Indonesia, and the three had exchanged each other's stories. One person from Manado said he had been at the site for months and that was employed as a scammer tricking Indonesians into making false investments.

"I realised then that I had been trapped," he said. "I thought I was being sold and would be forced to work as an online scammer."

forced into scamming

Over the past three years, many job seekers in Southeast Asia have fallen victim to human trafficking schemes involving forced online scamming. The Global Anti Scam Organization has reported that since 2021, over 1,800 individuals have been trafficked and coerced into becoming online scammers, many of them are job seekers from Indonesia.

Between 2020 and 2023, the Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs found, 3,428 Indonesian citizens were trafficked and forced into online scamming roles across eight countries, with most of them sent to Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, Laos and the Philippines.

Throughout 2023, the government further reported, as many as 385 individuals were successfully repatriated to their country.

Muhammad Afrilian, 28, is one of them. In mid-2022, he was offered a job as a barista in Thailand by a recruiter who posted job vacancies in WhatsApp groups. He then enrolled in a short English course and a barista training workshop before leaving for Thailand.

"We paid USD 509 for the training in three payments, and considered the cost to be commensurate with the USD 650 per month promised wages," Ema, Afrilian's wife, told FairPlanet.

However, his job offer as a barista was withdrawn when Afrilian's work visa had been rejected by Thai authorities for lack of proper documentation. He was then offered a job as an online marketer. Tempted by the handsome salary, Afrilian accepted the offer. 

The recruiter then sent him to Bangkok. After a 12-hour journey to the work site, Afrilian grew suspicious. "Seven hours after telling me they had arrived in Bangkok, my husband said that they were still in the rest area, eating," she said.

At around 13:30 that day, Ema received news that her husband had arrived at an unknown destination, and had lost contact with him shortly afterwards.

A week later, on Sunday afternoon, Afrilian told Ema that they were hired, but did not elaborate on the nature of the job. He said he did not know where he was, and that he was placed in a room with several people in a large building.

The following week, Ema's husband called again, and tearfully informed her that he and several Indonesians had been tricked and sold. They were forced, he said, to work as online scammers.

"Their job [is] to scam rich men from various countries into being interested in investing in fake projects," said Ema. As many as 1,000 people were forced to work there, and at least 60 of them came from Indonesia, Afrilian told her.

"Impossible to escape"

Although hundreds of Indonesians have been rescued from online human trafficking rings in recent years, many remain trapped.

Of the three victims interviewed by FairPlanet, two were released after paying a USD 1,000 ransom.

Andra called his parents and asked them to send him the ransom. The syndicate withdrew the money from his account.

A victim from Manado shared a similar experience, reporting that after being forced to work as a scammer for a month, he was asked to pay a ransom for his release.

At first, Afrilian was also forced to pay a ransom if he wanted to return home, unless he agreed to work as a scammer. He recounted to Ema an incident where one victim who attempted to escape was caught and tortured to death.

According to four different sources interviewed by FairPlanet, several other victims were tortured for refusing to pay ransom or work.

Escape was impossible, the sources shared, saying that the route was complex, victims were blindfolded during river transport and soldiers guarded every corner, especially the gate.

"The soldiers were guarding with gunfire in their hands, so it was impossible to run away from the area," said the victim from Manado, who asked to remain anonymous for safety reasons. 

Victims criminalised and intimidated

The Indonesian Migrant Workers Union (SBMI), which focuses on migrant worker issues, recorded 263 victims of human trafficking based on dozens of reports from 2021 to 2023.

Many victims were arrested, jailed and eventually repatriated, the NGO reported. In a major raid in May 2023, Indonesian and Philippine police jointly raided a location in the Philippines, arresting over 1,000 victims of human trafficking who had been coerced into scamming; 154 of these were Indonesians.

"Some Indonesians have indeed been successfully repatriated, and some have been arrested and sentenced to prison, but there are still many Indonesians who are trapped as victims of this crime," Juwarih Setiya, Secretary General of SBMI, told FairPlanet.

In March 2023, Ema and 19 other families of human trafficking victims, assisted by SBMI, filed a complaint with Indonesia's National Human Rights Commission. This action prompted the government to repatriate over two hundred victims, including Afrilian. Additionally, three members of the Indonesian syndicate involved were tried and sentenced to seven to eight years in prison, and ordered to pay restitution to the victims.

Juwarih noted, however, that rescuing victims has become increasingly difficult, as they are more intimidated by traffickers. Recently, the organisation received a complaint from an Indonesian trapped as a scammer who was reluctant to disclose his location or provide detailed information, indicating a high level of fear imposed by the traffickers.

"Looking at previous cases, traffickers now seem to be making their victims even more tied, even under threats, so they are afraid to speak up," said Juwarih.

"untouchable hands"

The suspected involvement of "large, untouchable hands" makes eradicating this crime even more challenging. In August 2022, law enforcement officers intercepted a chartered plane at Kualanamu International Airport in North Sumatra. The plane was set to illegally transport workers to Cambodia.

"If it wasn't a big syndicate that had influential backing, who would be able to charter a plane to take them [the illegal workers] off?" said Juwarih, who was interviewed by FairPlanet in mid-March.

According to him, Indonesian job seekers are particularly vulnerable to human traffickers due to the high number of people looking for work and the attractive wages often promised by traffickers.

"This crime will only be eradicated if the government is able to clean the untouchable hands of those suspected of being the main actors behind it," he added. 

Ironically, most of these cases only received government attention after gaining widespread media coverage. Juwarih cited the March 2023 incident, which only came to the government's attention and was acted upon after it had attracted significant public interest and went viral on social media.

Juwarih emphasised that, given the increasing vulnerability of potential victims, the ongoing efforts are focused on educating Indonesian job seekers through campaigns to prevent them from being deceived by traffickers.

Image by Tbel Abduseridze.