BANGKOK: As we left Suvarnabhumi Airport on a humid Friday evening, Teruntum assemblyman Sim Chon Siang was adamant that this would be his last trip to rescue stranded Malaysians who allegedly fell for job scams and were smuggled into KK Garden, also known as the "Garden of Hell”, in Myanmar or to other countries via Thailand.

Five Malaysians were rescued that day (Feb 3) - four young men and one young woman.

That Sim said he was stopping was not new - he had announced his retirement from rescue work before I was even invited to go along on this trip from Feb 3 to 7 to help bring home the five rescued Malaysians.

It was his last hurrah; he had hoped to return triumphant with the victims as a nice way to bookend an inadvertent foray into a job rescuing Malaysian young adults who fell for job scams in other countries.

Sim has been doing rescue work for almost a year. Initially rewarding, it has become mentally, emotionally and financially draining.

He is tired, he told me. He has travelled to Thailand too many times in the past year on his own dime to rescue Malaysian youth who believed they would make over RM4,000 monthly working as unskilled labourers.

"This is not my job. This is the Foreign Minister’s job. My job involves monitoring the price of eggs,” he reminded me. As a member of the Pahang state executive council, he manages consumer affairs and human resources for the state.

But like everything else, his quest to rescue scammed and stranded Malaysians had to start somewhere. For Sim, it began with a damsel in distress, in the form of 22-year-old Chia Ming Yong who vanished in April last year.

Her disappearance was front page news in Chinese dailies in Malaysia for days.

It inspired Sim and his soon-to-be ally Victor Wong, a Malaysian businessman living in Thailand.

Sim first tried to help his constituent Loke Chooi Tip whose youngest son Koh Sheng Yur, 19, had been taken to Myanmar.

Although he could not secure the boy’s release, Sim decided to continue trying to help other scammed victims. (Koh was rescued sometime last year by Malaysia Crime Prevention Foundation vice-chairman and businessman Datuk Seri Johny Ch’ng Ewe Gee who managed to put his connections to good use.)

Before long, Sim’s office got calls from families and victims of job scams and love scams. Most of them were not from Pahang. He met with the victims’ families and went to Thailand.

There, Malaysian Embassy officials introduced him to Wong who was also independently trying to help scammed Malaysians to return home. Even better, Wong had the necessary connections to get information and assistance from the Thai authorities.

The thought of saying "No" to crying families felt wrong at that time, so Sim started making regular trips to Thailand with every credible report and information of a trafficked victim.

SUNDAY (FEB 5): ROAD TRIP TO MAE SOT

Depending on which route you take, Mae Sot is located between 490km and 533km north-west of Bangkok or six to eight hours’ drive. We made it in nine hours because we stopped at several rest stops for lunch, drinks and to relieve ourselves.

The drive itself was uneventful other than a rabble of bikers from Malaysia passing us by. But at about 5pm, we started passing army checkpoints. We were close.

The reason Mae Sot is important is it is located right along the Thai-Myanmar border, separated by the Moei River. It is also right opposite KK Garden, a huge self-sustaining compound in Myawaddy that reportedly hosts several crime syndicates and where trafficked scam victims from Malaysia and other countries were being held.

Victims who have managed to get away report being forced to work as online scammers for up to 12 hours a day. If they failed to meet their targets, they were forced to work for longer hours, slapped, hit or beaten, once with tragic consequences.

In September last year, Sim and Wong helped an Ipoh couple find their 23-year-old son, a student teacher who was love scammed and trafficked into Myanmar in February last year.

He had been forced to work as a scammer in KK Garden.

They found his grave instead.

Once in Mae Sot, we stopped in Mahawan by the Moei River where crocodiles supposedly provide a natural gate preventing anyone from escaping from Myanmar to Thailand.

Across the river, I could see the walls of KK Garden, shimmering pink in the dying sun. I didn’t see any crocodiles but I saw a few people crossing the river into the village where we were.

A curious villager, with a back full of tattoos and a mouth devoid of teeth, chatted with us in Thai. He told us he hasn’t seen many people about the compound. He has seen body parts washing up in the river though.

Considering it was next to Myanmar and there was a civil war going on, that tidbit probably wasn’t surprising.

We met four of the five victims rescued the day we arrived in Thailand for dinner. What struck me was how young they were. And how incredibly naive.

Nur Fitriani Abdullah from Johor and the others had answered a job advertisement that promised monthly wages of US$1,100 (RM4,761) for a housekeeping position at a hotel in Singapore.

She did not have a passport when she was supposed to cross to Singapore with the recruiters. She also did not react when the recruiters told her she was going to Bangkok instead.

"And you didn’t think that was suspicious?” I asked. She said no.

"When the agent changed the destination to Thailand, I felt a bit worried but I tried to think positively and just go with the flow. I only felt really scared when we reached Kelantan and were about to get into the boat,” she said.

She told me she and her boyfriend, 25-year-old Kamil Abd Hamid, were too scared to run away by then. There were four people guarding them at each leg of the journey, the first three unarmed men wearing plainclothes and the next two armed uniformed soldiers. What about the checkpoints? The two shrugged.

The word "bribe” hung heavy over the gathering but was never uttered.

The fifth rescued victim joined us after dinner. Lee Zhi Cong was not part of the four and was rescued separately. But the tale of his escape came out much later.

MONDAY (FEB 6): RESCUE ATTEMPT, MORE INTERVIEWS

A sixth Malaysian was supposed to make his escape on this particular day. We weren’t sure what time, but Wong said the Thai army was meeting the victim - a 33-year-old man - once he escaped from the compound (KK Garden) and crossed the river.

We were a bit excited to meet him; Sim’s assistants went out to buy a fresh change of clothes for him, figuring he would literally be escaping with only the clothes on his back.

Unfortunately, the army prohibited us from going anywhere near the rendezvous point by the river.

Instead, we decided to trace the route the traffickers took Nur Fitriani, Kamil, Adam Iskandar Tukiman, 20, and Akmar Hamsan, 19, to KK Garden.

They had described walking through a cornfield before hitting the river, crossing it on a boat. One would be hard-pressed to see anyone crossing through the field and foliage at night.

If it’s not clear yet, the Thai-Myanmar border is extremely porous and securing it is practically impossible.

While out, the sixth victim sent Wong a video message, saying he was still trying to escape but there were too many guards around. The video showed people walking around the compound near the walls, effectively blocking his escape.

"He will wait for when they change shifts,” said Wong.

Hours passed. Figuring it was safe to go to the rendezvous point at dusk, we went there to see the army contingent preparing to leave. The sixth victim had not shown up. Wong and sim decided to talk to the Thai army and ask them to keep looking for the man.

At dinner, we went to a Thai food stall whose proprietors helped save another victim Muhd Farhan Azman by giving him food and hiding him from the job scam syndicate.

Muhd Farhan, who is a friend of Adam and Akmar, went back to Malaysia on Dec 21.

TUESDAY (FEB 7): A VISIT WITH THE ARMY

Even though there was still one more victim waiting to be rescued, we had no choice but to leave today. In order to return to Malaysia, the five needed to go through the Thai immigration court system. The process could take days and sim was hoping to have them home by Friday. If not, they would likely fly home the following week.

Before heading back to Bangkok with the victims, we made a stop at the Tak Province military camp to meet with Col Narongchai Charoenchai, deputy commandant-general of the Nareasuan Force.

"I went in many, many times (to rescue trafficked victims). It’s my duty to protect all along the border,” he spoke in halting English in response to sim thanking him.

He added it was better to stop people from being duped and trafficked as it is difficult to rescue them once they are being held.

"There needs to be more awareness,” he said in Thai.

With the meeting over, our main purpose was mainly done. What was left was the administrative stuff, like getting new passports for the victims who did not have their passports save for Lee.

At the same time, I had been doing some internal math, remembering that sim had said we were on the trip to rescue five victims, not six. I was also curious how Lee managed to retain his passport.

Lee is 26 years old but he presents as very young. He has a shock of black hair and a cherubic face and tends to look upward when talking to people.

When he gets excited, he drools a bit out of the corner of his mouth. He cannot seem to give a straight answer, needing to go through a timeline and list of everything that occurred before getting to the point.

During the six-hour ride to Bangkok, he said he worked three jobs at the scamming centre: love scammer, translator and real estate scammer. He also said he did not manage to scam a single person. When asked if he was punished, he said he was forced to do push-ups and some other form of exercise.

After repeated questions on how he managed to get away, he finally said his supervisor had called him that afternoon, told him to get his bags, gave him his passport and told him to go. It was the same with the other four, except Adam and Akmar did not get their passports back.

I asked Sim about Lee. Was he included in the rescue list or was he a bonus rescue?

"He’s a bonus rescue,” he confirmed.

If only all the other rescues were that easy. - Bernama