A 30-year-old Kenyan national was escorted to see Thai police in Phop Phra district of Tak province, after he escaped from his Chinese captors at a scam call centre in Kayan state of Myanmar.
The Kenyan identified only as James told Thai police that he had applied for a job as a cook in Thailand, through an employment agency in Kenya.
Upon arrival at the Suvarnabhumi international airport in Bangkok on October 5th last year, however, he and two compatriots were picked up by a driver who drove them to Mae Sot district of Tak.
He said he realised that he had been duped when the three of them were smuggled across the Moei River, a natural demarcation line between Thailand and Myanmar.
He claimed that he was forced to work in a call centre, tasked with luring potential victims to invest in cryptocurrency, adding that, when he refused to work as ordered, he was beaten and, sometimes, given electric shocks.
He also claimed that he managed to escape yesterday and ran barefoot for about six kilometers over mountains from the call center to the Thai border in Ban Chong Khaeb, Phop Phra district.
He claims that there are many foreigners, including people from the Philippines, Cambodia, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, working in the same call centre.
Thai police in Phop Phra district has contacted the Kenyan Embassy in Bangkok, to arrange for the man to meet the ambassador, Kiptiness Lindsay Kimwole.
He was later taken to the screening centre in Mae Sot district for further interviews by Thai authorities.
