From Dream Job to Nightmare: Kenyan man trapped in Myanmar scam syndicate speaks out

Only for Peter Mwangi, it was a mirage. Four months ago, the 28-year-old left Kenya for Thailand optimistic that this was it, the moment he would look back on as defining his success and so he took a leap of faith. 

He’d heard through a friend that as long as you could communicate proficiently in English and type, there were customer service jobs aplenty, in Thailand. Only, he would have to pay Ksh.150,000 to an agent to make it happen but, “first I was scammed with other agents.”

“Self-employed,” as a taxi driver until that point, Mwangi felt a job in Thailand would open up a world of opportunities.

He thought wrong.

“We travelled to Bangkok for the job. When we alighted we were told that someone would take us. In Bangkok, we found so many Africans and (people from) other countries also for the same job. Someone took us in a taxi and drove us for like 8 hours and we entered a hotel to sleep for a short time like 3 hours then another driver took us."

"He drove us for another 9 hours nonstop and we found ourselves in a river and other people took us and (we) crossed the river to Myanmar. That's where things changed, it was so hard, tough. It was a hell in earth," Mwangi recounts.

Mwangi, like thousands of others desperate for work, had been recruited to carry out online scams.

“The scams target US citizens through real estate scams. The scammers pretend to be someone else using their character. They pretend to be a rich real buyer then they engage them in friendship then introduce the realtors to a fake investment in cryptocurrency and they make sure they take all of their money.  If the scams didn't do that and meet the target the Chinese bosses will make them suffer with punishment, fines, put them in dark rooms and sometimes deny them food,” Mwangi narrates.

“The target was $10,000 a day in team.”

It went on like that, up to 19 hours a day, without pay and with their communication with the outside world not only monitored but restricted. 

Mwangi is among 67 Kenyans, he says, rescued from these compounds in response to pressure applied on the Thailand government by Chinese authorities.

“But we have others who haven't been rescued and they are more than us, maybe 400 plus we aren't so sure,” he adds.

Now all Mwangi wants is to return home. 

“We were told that they have reached (out) to each country's embassy and some countries have responded but our country Kenya hasn't said anything or responded.  Some countries have already taken their people home like Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan. We are still waiting for our embassy to respond,” he adds.

When reached for comment by Citizen Digital, Diaspora Affairs Principal Secretary Roseline Njogu responded: 

“We are aware and are working to repatriate them. We've already repatriated 28 and are working on the next group.”

But for Mwangi and dozens of other Kenyans, possibly hundreds, their return home cannot come fast enough with humanitarian organisations concerned by their housing conditions: sanitation is a major concern as is the spread of TB.