MEA identifies 4 firms that are involved in the ‘hostage-taking’ of Indians in Myanmar

HYDERABAD: The foreign ministry announced on Friday that it has located four businesses responsible for the employment entrapment scheme in Myanmar and was trying to free the Indian nationals still trapped there—roughly 100 to 150 individuals. 32 people have been saved by the authorities thus far. However, those who have made it back to Hyderabad and Delhi have reported to TOI that at least 500 Indians are thought to remain imprisoned there. At least 10 to 20 Indians are transported daily to Myawaddy and Mae Sot.

According to a statement from the Office of the Protector of Emigrants (PoE-Hyderabad), ‘Up to this point, OKX Plus (Dubai-based), Lazada, Super Energy group, and Zhentian group have been identified as the companies offering these jobs,’ confirming that the Indian IT professionals lured into taking these jobs were made to pose as Chinese women online and defraud high net worth individuals from the US and Europe in the name of cryptocurrency investment.

The major core of the ‘slave labour’ scheme, the IT SEZ region at Mae Sot, is not far from Myawaddy, where a number of IT businesses are based. The border town of Myawaddy between Thailand and Myanmar is reportedly mainly under Chinese control. An IT worker from Mumbai who was stranded there remarked, ‘The government of India should act swiftly if we are to come out alive’.

According to the PoE office, these job seekers ‘go to Bangkok utilising the visa-on-arrival option, where they are then swiftly transported to Myanmar. Therefore, unless the mission is notified by the victims or their loved ones, it is impossible to follow their arrival and subsequent movement’.

In July 2022, there was a first instance of this. ‘ Since then, the MEA has been acting in the best interests of such Indian citizens through its embassies in Thailand and Myanmar. In addition to routinely bringing up the problem with the local authorities, our embassies in Yangon and Bangkok have published advisories ‘,added the PoE. Many times, people had accepted these positions despite being cautioned about the negative effects, it continued. The statement read, ‘It has also been reported that certain Indians are willingly engaged in scamming jobs and earned high compensation/incentives to entice other Indian citizens’.