Forest refuge: Thai locals lend hand to Vietnamese man’s escape from scam gang

Kindhearted locals helped a Vietnamese man after he escaped from a scam call centre gang in Cambodia and hid in a forest in the Isaan province of Surin in Thailand.

Locals encountered the 18 year old Vietnamese man, Ngo Dong Hao, in the forest yesterday morning and took the teenager to Surin Provincial Immigration Bureau. He did not have a passport or any other documents with him.

During questioning at the immigration office, the Vietnamese man claimed that he lived in the Tra Vinh province in Vietnam and illegally travelled to Cambodia to work as a website administrator. However, when he got there he was forced to work in a scam call centre. He asked to leave but his crooked criminal scam gang leader said he could return home if he could pay back the 100,000 baht that the gang paid for his expenses. He worked for two months in an attempt to pay the fine but soon realised that it was a hopeless exercise and decided to escape.

Hao said that he tried to travel to Vietnam but got lost and ended up in the forest on the border of Thailand. Some Thai people found him after three days without food or drinking water.

Unfortunately, the Vietnamese man faces charges in Thailand as he illegally entered the country. He could be imprisoned for up to two years and a fine of up to 20,000 baht for staying in Thailand without permission.

The immigration police did not reveal the next steps or whether the man would be transferred to his home country after being punished.

The Vietnamese man’s story is not an isolated incident in Thailand. Last month, a Chinese man lured into working for the scam call centre also escaped to Thailand. The 41 year old Liu Hai Cook, explained that he applied to work as a chef in Cambodia but ended up being a scam gang employee.

The Chinese man explained that the gang was prepared to sell him and some other colleagues to another scam gang in another country, so he escaped and walked through the forest until arriving in Thailand.

During the same month, three other Chinese nationals also sought help from the Thai authorities after escaping from a scam gang in Myanmar. During the journey from an office in Myanmar to Cambodia, the three men took a chance when the employers stopped at a petrol station in Thailand to escape.