Most people are lured in through the promise of well-paid jobs – including Kiet (pictured above, with his mother, whose name has been changed).
The Vietnamese 30-year-old spent more than a year in a casino-turned-scam-centre in Myanmar, after applying for a well paid job that required basic computing skills. But the role didn’t exist. Instead he ended up as a “dog-pusher” – the term used to describe those trapped operating love scams, crypto fraud, money laundering, and illegal gambling operations.
Things went from bad to worse after his first attempt to escape failed. Not only did his captors beat and torture him, but they threatened to harvest and sell his kidneys on the black market as punishment – a trend that is being increasingly reported.
“He was actually on the operating table and opened up, but halfway through the procedure they changed their mind – presumably because his kidney wasn’t in good enough condition – and closed him up,” said Blue Dragon’s Carlota Torres Lliró.
Afterwards his captors, demanding ransom instead, allowed him to call his family. It was at this point that plans for a rescue were set in motion. His relatives contacted Blue Dragon, who helped plan his release in a secretive operation. When he finally got back to Vietnam earlier this month, his body still bore scars from his torture and aborted operation.
‘There’s still a huge demand for women’
“These scam compounds are quite different to other forms of trafficking that we have seen before… and there’s a lot more brutality involved,” said Dr Wyndham.
She added that their rise is “linked to the economic aftershocks of the pandemic and inflation” – according to the International Labour Organization, 32 million Vietnamese people lost jobs, working hours or income streams due to the pandemic.
“Covid depleted everyone’s savings here in Vietnam, and the pandemic has been followed by a downturn in work opportunities,” she said. “That has really increased vulnerability to trafficking… people are taking bigger risks to migrate further from home to find work.”
But the jump in male victims does not mean that fewer women are being exploited; they still make up more than 60 per cent of domestic and international trafficking victims. Many are also ending up in the scam centres, where sexual violence is rampant, or are sold into prostitution.