How a Gurgaon man paid ₹20,000 for a Thailand dream but instead woke up in a jungle guarded by guns

Rupesh, 21, (Name changed), a second-year student at a government college in Gurgaon and son of a farming family, was restless. He wanted to earn on his own instead of just studying. In late September he casually told his elder brother’s friend, “Job ho to batana.” That innocent request set off a chain that nearly cost him everything.

Yogesh connected him to Sandeep (alias “Lucas” on Telegram), whose profile showed a flashy black BMW on foreign soil. The offer sounded ideal: a data-entry job in Thailand paying 30,000 Thai Baht—roughly ₹80,000 a month. On October 14, Rupesh paid ₹20,000 for the flight arranged by Sandeep and left for Bangkok, full of quiet expectation.

A vehicle picked him up at the airport along with two other young Indians—one from Rajasthan, one from Andhra Pradesh. Their passports were photographed. The next morning the real journey began. “We travelled till late night and stayed at a hotel in Tak,” Rupesh told TOI. “The next morning, the roads disappeared. We went through dense jungles, changing at least 10-15 vehicles. One night, we were made to sleep in a hut inside the jungle itself.”


The group was herded along muddy paths and makeshift routes. Suspicion grew with every vehicle change and every guarded stop, but there was no turning back. On October 18 they crossed the Moei river illegally and entered Myanmar. Only then did the true destination reveal itself: KK Park, a heavily guarded cybercrime fortress run by Chinese handlers with local militia protection. High-rises, clubs, restaurants and at least eight separate scam centres operated inside its walls.

Rupesh was taken to a floor with 20-25 other Indians. “The buildings looked like corporate offices, with cubicles just like the ones in Cyber City,” he told TOI. The work had nothing to do with data entry. Recruits were trained for two months to create fake profiles posing as women, befriend affluent Americans, shift conversations to WhatsApp or other platforms, and run prolonged “love chats” to extract money. Daily targets were strict: trap 3-4 “customers.” Incentives came for success; heavy fines for missing targets, long toilet breaks or lateness. On paper the salary remained 30,000 Baht, but penalties often slashed it to as low as 12,000. Drugs were freely supplied to those already addicted to keep productivity high. Escape attempts invited shoot-at-sight orders.

Rupesh refused to participate. Handlers immediately demanded $4,000 for his release and pushed a one-year bond. His family, back in Gurgaon, borrowed ₹3.9 lakh at 5% interest and paid. After the transaction, he was moved to an army camp where his passport was confiscated before being handed over for deportation. He returned to India on November 18.

“I was fortunate to escape before getting trapped,” Rupesh told TOI. “Asking my elder brother’s friend for a job could have cost me my life.”

The two Indians who travelled with him were taken deeper into the compound and were not as lucky. Local police later arrested four agents, including Sandeep; his brother Mukul and two others were also deported to India on November 10. For Rupesh, the Telegram mirage ended in debt, trauma and a hard lesson about desperation in a job-scarce world. Thousands of other young Indians remain inside similar compounds, still chasing the same false promise.

(With TOI inputs)