This is how the fields work with 'cyberslaves' who are dedicated to internet scams

Warning: This story contains details of violence, including sexual violence, that some readers may find disturbing. The name of one of the participants-Ravi-has been altered to protect his identity.

“They took off my clothes, made me sit in a chair and gave me electric shocks in my leg. I thought it was the end of my life.”

Ravi had traveled to Thailand to take a job in IT, but instead of a high-rise office building in Bangkok, the 24-year-old from Sri Lanka found himself trapped in a gloomy compound in Myanmar.

He had been kidnapped and sold across the river near the Thai border town of Mae Sot. He was another victim of human trafficking.

There, he says, he was sold to one of many camps run by Chinese-speaking criminal gangs engaged in online scams. They force trafficked people like Ravi to work long hours in these scams, using fake online identities to pose as women and deceive lonely men in the United States and Europe.

If they find a vulnerable target, they try to persuade them to invest large sums of money in fake trading platforms that promise quick returns.

They are cybernetic slave camps. Ravi's was a jungle shelter in Myawaddy, a region of Myanmar outside the control of the military junta that rules that country.

According to Interpol, thousands of young men and women from Asia, East Africa, South America and Western Europe are lured to work in these cybercriminal camps through false promises of computer-related jobs.

People who refuse to follow orders are beaten, tortured or raped.

“I spent 16 days in a cell for not obeying them. They only gave me water mixed with cigarette butts and ash to drink,” Ravi told the BBC.

“While I was in the cell, on the fifth or sixth day, two girls were brought to a nearby cell. 17 men raped them in front of my eyes,” he added.

“One of the girls was a Filipino national. I'm not sure about the other victim.”

The UN estimates that in 2023 alone more than 120,000 people in Myanmar and another 100,000 in Cambodia had been forced to work in these and other online frauds ranging from illegal gambling to cryptocurrency scams.

An Interpol report last year found more hubs for online scams in Laos, the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand and, to a lesser extent, Vietnam.

An Interpol spokesperson told the BBC that this trend has evolved from a regional problem to a global security threat. More and more countries are becoming centers of scams, transit routes or starting points for victims.

Earlier this month, the Indian government announced that it had so far rescued 250 of its citizens who had been sold in Cambodia, while in March, China repatriated hundreds of its citizens from scam hubs in Myanmar.

Beijing has been increasing pressure to close these centers on both Myanmar's military government and armed groups.

And Sri Lankan authorities know they have knowledge of at least 56 of their nationals held captive in four different locations in Myanmar. Sri Lanka's ambassador to Myanmar, Janaka Bandara, told the BBC that eight of them had recently been rescued with the help of local authorities.

Migrants in search of employment provide a constant source of labor for those who run these modern slavery camps.

Every year, hundreds of thousands of South Asian engineers, doctors, nurses and computer experts migrate in search of work abroad.

Ravi, a computer specialist, was desperately looking for a way out of Sri Lanka and the economic crisis it is suffering when he learned that someone was offering jobs entering information into database systems in Bangkok.

This person and a partner in Dubai assured him that the company would pay him a base salary of 370,000 rupees (US$1,200).

As newlyweds, Ravi and his wife dreamed that this new job would allow them to build a house, so they took out several loans to pay the local agent.

In early 2023, Ravi was sent with a group of Sri Lankans to Bangkok and from there to Mae Sot, a city in western Thailand.

“They took us to a hotel, but soon they handed us over to two armed men. They took us across a river to Myanmar,” Ravi said.

They were then taken to the camp run by Chinese-speaking foremen, and were given orders not to take photographs.

“We were terrified. About forty young men and women, including Sri Lankans, people from Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and African countries, were forcibly detained in the camp,” he said.

As Ravi remembers, high walls and barbed wire prevented escape from these compounds, whose entrances were guarded by armed men 24 hours a day.

He and the others were forced to work up to 22 hours a day and were only given one day off a month. They were expected to dupe at least three men a month.

Those who disobeyed suffered beatings and torture unless they could pay to leave.

That's what Neel Vijay, a 21-year-old from Maharashtra, a region in western India, did, who was sold in Myanmar along with five other Indian men and two Filipino women in August 2022.

He told the BBC that a childhood friend of his mother had promised him a job as a telemarketer in Bangkok and had charged him a commission of 150,000 Indian rupees (US$1,800) to get him the job.

“There were several companies run by Chinese-speaking people. They were all scammers. They sold us to those companies,” Neel said.

“When we reached that place, I lost hope. If my mother hadn't given them the ransom, they would have tortured me like the others.”

Neel's family paid the gang 600,000 Indian rupees, about $7,190, for his freedom after he refused to participate in the scam, but not before he had witnessed the brutal punishment meted out to people who did not comply. the targets or could not pay the ransom.

Upon his release, Thai authorities helped him return to India, where his family has taken legal action against the local agents who recruited him.

Thai officials are working with other countries to help repatriate victims. However, a senior official in Thailand's Ministry of Justice told the BBC that the number of those rescued is minimal.

“We need to do more in communicating with the world and educating people about these criminal gangs so that they do not become their victims,” ​​said Deputy Director General of the Department of Special Investigation (DSI) in Thailand, Piya Raksakul.

Human traffickers often use Bangkok as a regional hub because people from many countries, including India and Sri Lanka, can enter Thailand by obtaining a visa upon arrival in the country.

Ravi revealed that he was instructed to target wealthy men, especially in Western countries, and attempt to forge romantic relationships with them using stolen phone numbers, social media and messaging platforms.

They contacted victims directly, typically leading them to believe that the first message, often just a simple “hello,” was sent in error.

Some people ignored the messages, Ravi says, but lonely people or those looking for sex often took the bait.

When they did so, a group of young women in the camp were forced to take explicit photos to further attract the target.

After exchanging hundreds of messages in just a few days, the scammers managed to gain the trust of these men and persuade them to place large sums of money on fake online investment platforms.

These fraudulent applications then displayed false information about the profits from these supposed investments.

“If a person transfers $100,000, we return $50,000, saying it is their benefit. This gives the impression that they now have $150,000, but in reality, they only get back half of their initial amount of $100,000, leaving the other half for us,” Ravi explained.

When scammers have taken everything they can from victims, messaging accounts and social media profiles disappear.

It is difficult to estimate the scale of this activity, but the 2023 Internet Crime Report of the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation found that there were more than 17,000 reports of such scams in the United States and the amounts defrauded amounted to US$652 million. .

According to his account, Ravi says he was sold after a month to another gang because “the company” he initially worked for went bankrupt. It would not be the last time. In the six months he spent in Myanmar he worked as a forced laborer for three different gangs.

When he fell into the hands of his new bosses, he told them that he did not want to continue deceiving people and begged to be allowed to return to Sri Lanka.

They didn't let him and one day a confrontation with the leader of his team led to a fight for which he was punished. They took him to a cell where they tortured him for 16 days.

Eventually, the band's “Chinese boss” came to see him and offered him “one last chance” to work again because of his software experience.

“I had no choice; by then, half my body was paralyzed,” she recalls.

For another four months, Ravi managed Facebook accounts set up using a VPN, artificial intelligence applications and 3D video cameras used for the scam business.

His pleas to be allowed to return to Sri Lanka to visit his sick mother were ignored.

Finally, the gang leader agreed to let Ravi go, but only if he paid a ransom of 600,000 rupees, about $2,000, and an additional 200,000 rupees, about $650, to cross the river and enter Thailand.

His parents borrowed the money, for which they put up their house as collateral, and transferred it to him. At last, Ravi managed to be taken back to Mae Sot.

When he was fined 20,000 Thai baht, about US$550, at the airport for not having a visa, his parents had to take out another loan.

“By the time I arrived in Sri Lanka, I had a debt of 1,850,000 rupees, about $6,100,” he said.

Although he is now back home, Ravi barely sees his new wife.

“I work day and night in a workshop to pay this debt. We have both pawned our wedding rings to pay the interest.”

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