Six Bhutanese have been rescued and repatriated from a foreign country in a rescue operation carried out by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and External Trade. The four men and two women who were repatriated last month have been identified as victims of human trafficking. The Department of Law and Order said they were deceived by a fictitious company in one of the Asian countries promising lucrative job opportunities and attractive salaries. The name of the country has not been disclosed to protect the identity of the victims.
The department identified it as a case of human trafficking as the six individuals were lured to work in a marketing company with attractive salaries and good working conditions which were not true.
The company’s ulterior motive was to let them scam potential investors, particularly from the United States in fake virtual assets.
Virtual assets are anything valuable that can be digitally traded, transferred or used for payment such as Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency among others.
“They got recruited through online interviews after they saw a Facebook advertisement of the job offer last year. The company arranged their travel with free tickets. They were treated well during the journey with accommodation in good hotels to avoid suspicion. They travelled via Kolkata and Singapore. They were given training in typing and were made to work for 18 hours, from 8 AM to 2 AM the next day,” said Karma Dorji, the officiating director general of the Department of Law and Order.
The company seized their passports after falsely claiming that they were processing work visas. Furthermore, they were compelled to use dating apps, assume fake identities and create numerous Facebook accounts to deceive people.
They were also instructed to act rich having amassed huge wealth from their investments in virtual assets.
“They were made to ask the customers to invest with a small amount initially and the customers were given profit to encourage more investments. While the company agreed to give Nu 98,000 as a monthly salary, they were made to earn commission instead of salary. When they failed to scam people, they didn’t get any salary. The company also did not allow them to move out of the office boundary,” added the officiating director general.
According to the department, the six Bhutanese had gone separately and met only at the company.
They were asked to refund huge amounts when they attempted to resign. They were confined in dark rooms when they disobeyed the company’s orders.
The officials from the department said the victims worked for less than a month. And during that period, a few of them lost 72 per cent of their salaries due to their inability to scam people and their resistance against the company.
Upon their rescue in Bhutan, all six individuals displayed good mental and physical well-being indicating that they did not require any psycho-social support according to the department.
Karma Samten/Kinley Dem
Edited by Sonam Pem
