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17-year-old high school student lured to Thailand for scam operation involving Thai-Myanmar border fraud network

Jan 1, 2025Myanmar, Thailand1 source

Summary

A 17-year-old high school student from Miyagi Prefecture was lured to Thailand in January by a Japanese man he met through an online video game, who promised him a high-paying job abroad. The student was taken to a hotel in Myanmar and forced to participate in a global scam operation involving tens of thousands of people along the Thai-Myanmar border. While in Myanmar, he was monitored by security guards with assault rifles and made phone calls to Japan from the country. His family filed a missing person report in Japan. The student was released and returned to Japan 10 days later after Japanese authorities contacted their Thai counterparts.

Incident Details

Domain
Child Safety

Harms involving the exploitation, abuse, or endangerment of minors, including CSAM and grooming.

Harm Types
Trafficking
Mechanism
contact
Severity
Minor involved
Recipient
Individuala 17-year-old high school student from Miyagi Prefecture
Dimensions
physicalpsychologicalautonomydiscriminatory

Sources

1

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