Two abducted in Myanmar return after each paid ₹5L to kidnappers
Mumbai: Two Dongri residents, who were lured with a lucrative job in Thailand and subsequently kidnapped and taken to Myanmar, have returned to the city 33 days after their families paid ₹5 lakh each to their kidnappers
Mumbai: Two Dongri residents, who were lured with a lucrative job in Thailand and subsequently kidnapped and taken to Myanmar, have returned to the city 33 days after their families paid ₹5 lakh each to their kidnappers. They also paid a fine to the Bangkok police for travelling to the country without valid documents and overstaying after their visas had expired.
Shehzad Mohammed Tamboli, 29, and Saud Niyaji, 28, returned to the city on Tuesday. On Thursday night, the duo approached the Dongri police, who registered a case against several travel agents and unknown captors who had cheated them.
“Shehzad and Saud were approached by one Nawaz Pathan, also a Dongri resident, who told them about job openings in Thailand for digital marketing and data entry which paid between USD 1,000 to 1,200 per month. The qualifications required were fluency in English and a typing speed of 25 words per minute,” said a police officer.
Nawaz introduced Shehzad and Saud to one Umar Chiruvattam at his office at Nishanpada Road in Dongri. Nawaz told Shehzad that Umar was his boss and he would help them in getting a job in Thailand. “Shehzad and Saud were then asked to shoot a video of themselves as self-assessment and to prove their typing speed,” said a police officer from the Mumbai crime branch which is now probing the Dongri case. “Later they were informed that they had cleared the interview and had been selected for the job. Soon after, they got a call from a Chinese national, Feng, who emailed them their air tickets, and on August 24 the duo travelled to Bangkok,” said the police officer.
The misadventure for the luckless duo began right away. “We stayed in the hotel for a day. The next day, around 6.30 am, a driver picked us up. He was a Thai national who told us it would take six to seven hours to reach the location. We crossed several immigration points and, as instructed by the driver, told the immigration officials that we were visiting Hotel Happy Inn in Mae Sot (a city in western Thailand that shares a border with Myanmar). We even crossed the Thai Myanmar Friendship Bridge 2 and reached Mae Sot. We were then shifted to a pick-up truck, which soon started following a Black Mahindra Scorpio. We crossed the Moei river with the help of a boat and after a short walk reached a company called KK Enterprises, whose compound was protected by a high wall and barbed wires,” said Shehzad.
After entering the premises, some Chinese nationals took photographs of the duo and their passports. “We were asked to fill some forms. However, after reading the terms and conditions on them, we realised that we had been misled and told the Chinese woman who was collecting the forms that we didn’t want to sign them. She immediately informed somebody, and a gunman appeared. He kicked Saud and menacingly pressed a gun to his back. Petrified by the sight, I immediately signed the papers. Saud too followed suit,” said Shehzad.
The duo was then taken to a dormitory and handed basic daily essentials like toothbrush, toothpaste and soaps in preparation for their stay. “We then met a Pakistani national who explained the work to us. We were asked to create several e-mail IDs for the sale of crypto currency. We were told to make fake IDs and reach out to potential targets in USA, Canada and Europe. They told us the work hours were from 10 am to 1 am with some breaks in between. The organisation had strange designations like Red Belt (leader), Yellow Belt (assistant leader), Grey Belt (company director), Black Belt (company boss), and Blue Belt (people like us who were hired as sales executives),” said Shehzad.
When both Shehzad and Saud insisted that they did not want to do the job, they were taken to one Daniel who handed them two bills totalling 1,79,660 Thai baht, which included the cost of their food, immigration charges, agent charges and border crossing charges. “They were asked to pay USD 5,263 each. Accordingly, they informed their families in India and their relatives arranged the money and deposited it with their agents who transferred the money to the bank accounts of the gang. Later they again demanded USD 1,000 from both, which too was paid,” said the senior crime branch officer.
After paying the money Shehzad and Saud’s bills were stamped ‘Clear for Release’. However, as their visas had expired, the people at the detention centre told them it would take two to three days to get them extended. “We waited for nine days, but the extended visas did not come. When we went to the office again and informed them that we wanted to leave the place, they took our phones and cleaned out the data from them. We were then allowed to leave the place in a pick-up truck, which dropped us at some distance from Mae Sot. We then walked to the city,” said Shehzad. “Here, we boarded a bus, but were asked to get down and detained for overstaying. We were eventually dropped at Bangkok airport three to four days later.”
According to Shehzad, there are over 2,500 Indians working in KK Enterprises. “They only target people who can speak fluent English, and as I was a journalist earlier, they lured me with money,” he said. “Since I had got married recently I was tempted with the money offered – up to ₹3.5 lakh per month for good performance – and fell into their trap,” he said. According to Shehzad, most of the fraud companies are run by rebel Myanmar groups along with Chinese nationals and are guarded by gunmen round the clock.
The Indian government recently rescued 32 Indians trapped in the area. The Indian embassies in Thailand and Myanmar have already issued advisories about the fraudulent companies that operate from Dubai, India and Bangkok, promising lucrative jobs in Thailand.