TAK: A Kenyan man crossed the Thai-Myanmar border to seek help in Phop Phra district, saying he was among about 1,000 people who were tortured unless they worked for a Chinese-led scam gang.
The 30-year-old man limped to a shop in Phop Phra district on Sunday morning. There, the man whose body was covered with wounds asked a shopkeeper to bring him to police.
The man whose name was withheld said he fled a “scammer town” in Myawaddy and spent about five hours crossing a mountain and walking for a distance of over 10 kilometres to the Thai border.
The Kenyan said that he had arrived in Thailand on Oct 5 last year because a Kenyan job placement firm had invited him to become a high-income chef in Thailand.
At Suvarnabhumi airport, an agent received him and two other Kenyans. They were brought to Mae Sot district of Tak and led across the Thai-Myanmar border to a call scam gang that forced them to work as cryptocurrency investment scammers.
The man said that when he refused to be a scammer, he was hit with a stun baton and baseball bat, and hot wax was applied to his wounds.
On Sunday his wounded feet were swollen from running barefoot away from the scam centre.
He said there were about 1,000 people at the scam centre including Bangladeshi, Cambodian, Ethiopian, Pakistani and Sri Lankan nationals. He was among 23 Kenyans at the facility controlled by Chinese people.
