Taiwanese fire dancer held by fraud ring in Myanmar returns home

Bangkok, Jan. 14 (CNA) A Taiwanese fire dancer who had been held for ransom by a criminal gang in Myanmar since late December was recently released and safely returned to Taiwan on Tuesday morning.

Hsieh Yueh-peng (謝岳鵬), 27, arrived in Bangkok in the early hours of Tuesday from the Thailand-Myanmar border under the joint efforts of Taiwanese and Thai police and then flew from Bangkok to Taoyuan International Airport.

Hsieh's release was due to the efforts of Taiwan's representative office in Thailand, Taiwan's Criminal Investigation Bureau, the National Immigration Agency's liaison officer in Thailand, the Taiwan International Anti-Scam Association, and the Thailand Tourist Police department, CNA has learned.

Police involved in the case did not disclose if Hsieh's family paid the ransom demanded to secure his release.

According to Taoyuan police, Hsieh last contacted his family on Dec. 25 after arriving in Thailand. He later asked his family for tens of thousands of U.S. dollars, telling them he was being held for ransom and forced to commit telecommunications fraud, police said.

Based on phone data, Hsieh's last known location was in Myanmar, police said.

Hsieh's family reported him missing to Taiwan's representative office in Myanmar on Dec. 27, Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said in a news release, adding that it had been trying to locate Hsieh "via available channels."

In an interview with CNA at Suvarnabhumi Airport outside Bangkok before flying back to Taiwan, Hsieh, a professional fire dancer, said he flew to Thailand after responding to a Facebook ad for a job opportunity.

The person contacting him via Facebook was offering reasonable pay for his fire dance performances, Hsieh said.

After he touched down in Bangkok, he was taken to a hotel in Mae Sot, a city in western Thailand on the border with Myanmar.

Hsieh was in his Mae Sot hotel for only three hours when someone knocked on his door and took him to another car by the riverside.

Crossing the river on a boat, Hsieh began to realize that something was wrong because none of the people waiting by the riverside spoke Thai. Also, he was asked to hand over his mobile phone before being surrounding by people holding rifles.

He was forced to jump onto a truck full of men appearing to be military personnel before being sent to a "fraud factory."

Only after arriving at the "factory" was he told by people there that he had to work in the fraud ring and that he could not leave unless his family paid them US$30,000.

While working in the factory, he managed to use a computer to make contact with his family and friends in Taiwan, but was later punished for doing it by the fraud ring and held on a nearby military base for nine days.

Citing himself as an example, Hsieh called on Taiwanese to be aware of similar job scams offering relatively easy jobs in a foreign country.

He told CNA he was willing to work as a volunteer for the government to publicize the danger of fraud scams overseas so that there are fewer victims of such schemes in the future.

Meanwhile, MOFA warned Taiwanese nationals visiting Southeast Asia to be on high alert amid frequent reports of people being forced to work for criminal gangs in Myanmar after first arriving in the region from Thailand.

As of Jan. 10, MOFA said the government had assisted in the repatriation of 1,533 Taiwanese nationals, many of whom have been lured to Southeast Asian countries since mid-2022 through the promise of high-paying work, only to be forced to work for fraud rings.

There are still 500 Taiwanese in Southeast Asian countries who are working for fraud rings, according to MOFA estimates.