Starved, beaten and electrocuted, Ahmed remains traumatised months after being trafficked to Southeast Asia, one of an untold number of Africans forced to work in scam centres far from home.
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.