Sawt Falasteen - 'Contemplated suicide': Ethiopians recount horror of SE Asia scam centres

The complexes have flourished across the region, often staffed by foreigners who are made to swindle people in what analysts say is a multi-billion-dollar industry.

Among them are Ethiopians, like 25-year-old Ahmed, who sign up for the promise of well-paid jobs.

Instead, they run "love scams" -- often referred to as "pig butchering" -- inside infamous prison-like compounds that have mushroomed across Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar.

The scammers operate fake profiles of wealthy Western women to lure men, and sometimes women, into investing in crypto-currencies -- before vanishing with their savings.

Hundreds have been released from complexes in Myanmar in recent weeks, according to local sources.

But the United Nations said in 2023 that "hundreds of thousands" were "forcibly engaged by organised criminal gangs into online criminality" across Southeast Asia.

Ahmed -- whose name AFP has changed to protect his identity -- endured months of captivity last year and returned home in December.

"I contemplated suicide," he said.

- Imprisoned, abused -

Ahmed said he was approached by an old friend offering him a job abroad that paid up to $500 a month.

It was a fortune in Ethiopia where the median monthly wage hovers around $24, according to the International Labour Organization.

His family raised $1,600 to send him to Laos, but he soon realised his friend had betrayed him when he was sucked into the scam world.

He managed to talk his way out of a compound in Laos, only to be abducted by armed men and taken to another in Myanmar, where his captors demanded $5,000 for his release.

"When I told them I'm poor and don't have money they laughed and then gave me electronic shocks that left me unconscious," he said.

On the 11th day, he said, half-starved, he was presented with a choice: work for free for 18 months, pay the ransom, or have sex on camera.

He chose to work for free, but conditions were significantly worse than in Laos.

"There were people in the compound who lost limbs because of torture," Ahmed said.

"The administrators of the place used to cut fingers of 'misbehaving or mediocre' staff," he added.

"I feel lucky... Even though I'm still suffering the effects of electrocution, my limbs haven't been amputated."

- Africa targeted -

Ahmed said there were roughly 3,000 people working in the Myanmar centre, including Ethiopians, Kenyans and Ugandans.

Africans are increasingly a target for scam centres, which require people who are proficient in English, desperate for work and digitally literate, said Jason Tower, Myanmar country director for the United States Institute of Peace who is based in the Thai capital Bangkok.

There is also little intervention from their governments.

"In the case of the Ethiopians, there's really almost no support that's being given from the embassies or the diplomatic staff out here," Tower, whose research examines transnational criminal networks, told AFP.

"The Ethiopian government has done nothing to help me," said Ahmed.

The government did not respond to an AFP request for comment.

The brutality is worsening, Tower said, as the complexes have been chased from Cambodia and Laos by government crackdowns and international pressure, into even more lawless territories held by Myanmar armed groups.

Ahmed said he and fellow Africans were treated worse than others.

"While Africans were subjected to severe torture as punishment, Chinese and Indians were punished with push-ups," he said.

- Crisis upon crisis -

Two other Ethiopians spoke to AFP about being trafficked, describing similar experiences.

"We reached a dilapidated compound which had blood stains on the inside walls," Mohammed -- also a pseudonym -- told AFP of a Myanmar complex.

"They beat me daily with wire whips, causing cuts on my back and head... I wished I was dead," he said.

The 26-year-old endured six months before his family raised almost $8,000 to secure his release -- leaving them virtually penniless.

When Ahmed got home, he realised his family had somehow raised $2,000 for his freedom and flight.

"My family is now indebted and economically destitute because of my ordeal," he said.

"I feel like I have returned from one crisis and entered into another."

Y.Shaath--SF-PST