Twenty-three Thais who were tricked into working for a Chinese company in Cambodia and subjected to mistreatment at the hands of their employer have been rescued and will be repatriated this week, a source in the Immigration Bureau said.
IB's chief investigator, Pol Col Chaya Panakij, told the Bangkok Post that the IB was coordinating with its Cambodian counterpart to repatriate the workers as soon as possible.
The IB source said Pol Maj Gen Achayon Kraithong, the IB deputy commander, has contacted Cambodian police and the police attache at the Thai Embassy in Phnom Penh to coordinate the efforts.
The 23 workers will be sent back to Thailand through Klong Luek checkpoint in Sa Kaeo's Aranyaprathet district, the source said.
The plight of the workers became known after some members of the group managed to get in touch with the crew of a Thai TV channel, saying they were lured into taking up a job with a Chinese company based in Cambodia.
They applied for the job after seeing a job advertisement on Facebook, which promised attractive pay to answer customers' queries for an online gambling website.
According to the source, the company was actually handling administrative and clerical tasks for a variety of Chinese online applications that were created to defraud Thai people.
The workers were told they would earn between 34,000-42,000 a month plus commission.
They later found out the pay was actually 24,000 baht a month with no commission.
Workers who failed to meet the sales targets or turned up late for work were threatened verbally, while some were given electric shocks as punishment.
They were told that if they attempted to report on the employer or escape, their legs would be cut off.