The Okeadu family in Imo State has demanded urgent intervention from the Federal Government following the alleged murder of their son, Obinna Okeadu, in what they describe as a “slave-style job scam camp” operating out of the Asian countries Myanmar and Thailand.
Obinna, a 33 years old man from Mbano, was recruited in August this year by agents of a foreign “factory job” firm which allegedly lures young Africans with promises of high-paying employment in Thailand, Myanmar, and Cambodia.
But upon arrival at the camp, the workers are reportedly stripped of their passports, locked underground, given harsh sales and online fraud targets, and tortured if they fail.
According to the family, dozens of Nigerians remain trapped in the same underground cells.
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“Our brother was invited for a factory job. Instead, he was taken to a secret camp. They seized his documents and forced him to carry out tasks under threat,” said Okechukwu Okeadu, elder brother.
He said an inmate secretly contacted the family, alleging Obinna died after he told supervisors he was exhausted and could not continue. He was allegedly beaten with a hard object and injected with an unknown substance.
The family also fears Obinna’s organs may have been harvested, a practice reported in multiple syndicate slave camps across Southeast Asia.
They said they have not received any official confirmation of his death, nor have they seen his body.
“We want to know what happened to him. Was he tortured to death? Where is his body? We need government intervention. There are other Nigerians still trapped there,” said Okechukwu Okeadu.
Nigeria recently banned the syndicate from operating locally, but the network reportedly relocated operations to
Myanmar and Cambodia, where it continues to recruit unsuspecting West Africans with deceptive offers.
The family is appealing to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Nigerian Embassy in Bangkok, and international human rights bodies to intervene immediately and rescue other Nigerians still being held.
Early last month, the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) arraigned two men, Ibrahim Suleiman Umar and Tijani Adam Goni, before the Federal Capital Territory High Court, Abuja, over their alleged involvement in a N4.8 million job scam and forgery of employment letters.
The defendants were brought before Justice B.M. Bassi on a five-count charge bordering on conspiracy, obtaining by false pretence, and forgery.
According to the charge sheet, the duo, in June 2021, conspired to defraud two unsuspecting job seekers of N4.8 million under the guise of securing employment for them at the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS).
