They left Kenya clutching promises of prosperity. A well-paying digital marketing job in Myanmar fetching/paying up to Sh100,000 a month had been dangled before them like a lifeline in a country where unemployment continues to choke the youth.
But now, for nearly 40 Kenyans, the dream has quickly turned into a nightmare. Today, they are languishing in Myanmar jails, thousands of kilometres away from home, after falling prey to what families now believe was an elaborate international scam disguised as overseas employment.
Behind that number are individual journeys that began the same way with quiet departures, goodbyes, and promises of work that sounded too good to ignore. One of them was John Kangi Kibe.
When Kibe was leaving for Thailand in June 2025, he told his pal Meshack Mutinda, who had known him for five years and who considers him as a close friend, that he had landed a lucrative job offer.
It was about online marketing, he told Mutinda. But when he flew to Bangkok, it all changed.
The office, as he would find out, was not in Bangkok but some two hours away. The job itself did not resemble what he had been promised. He would later confide in Mutinda that it did not feel like a workplace. It was like confinement but leaving was not an option since he was under constant surveillance. Then one day, their base was attacked, and that’s how he found himself in the grip of “individuals I didn’t know.”
And last month, he told his friend that he would be among the Kenyans who will be repatriated on January 14.
Multinational victims of scam centres, who were trafficked into working in Myanmar and were sent to Thailand, wait for their embassies to pick them up, in Tak province, Thailand February 19, 2025.
Photo credit: Reuters
The only catch was that they were paying for their own flight tickets. Mutinda did all the paperwork. But the hopes of repatriation evaporated.
“In our last communication, he said they’d been packed on a lorry and they were being taken to a location they didn’t know,” Mutinda narrated to Nation. Kibe did not explain much. “To-date, I don’t know what happened,” Mutinda said. Kibe was a young man who worked in Nairobi as a matatu driver. He left in search of greener pastures overseas.
“He went there innocently. I just know he is jailed in one of the worst prisons there. I fear he is being tortured. I fear for his health and life,” Mutinda said.
The optimism that once filled his voice has now been replaced by helpless waiting. But Kibe’s story is not an isolated one.
Abigael Cherop, the sister of Cynthia Jemutai is also in the same trap. Abigael was referred to the job opportunity by a friend, her sister Cynthia told Nation . All Cynthia really knew was that her sister was leaving for Thailand as “an online marketer.”
But when the 23-year-old arrived in Bangkok, she called back home to notify them that it had not panned out as she thought. She said she was working as one of the agents in an online scamming company. They were busted two months later, and had hoped for repatriation. That relief was only short-lived since she somehow found herself in another ring of scammers.
They were always being paid on commission basis, the sister, Jemutai, said. But while Abigael found herself trapped in endless cycles of scamming rings, others such as Hosea Cheruiyot were preparing to leave home with the same hope for a better life.
When Cheruiyot bid his wife, Mercy Wafula, and three children goodbye on December 21, 2025, they hoped that as soon as he landed on the other side, their fate would change for the better. Cheruiyot had been approached by an agent whom the wife says told him that they were recruiting for jobs in Thailand.
Just a few hours shy of Christmas celebrations, Cheruiyot was sacrificing everything: The comfort of home and warmth of his family to fend for them. They had even sold their only cow, his wife told the Nation.
“We hoped that if he made it abroad, our lives would improve,” Ms Wafula said. But as soon as he landed on the other side, he began complaining that the job was so stressful and was commission-based. He occasionally complained that pay would be delayed. He also complained about the work environment. “I didn’t know much about what the job entails. I only urged him to hold on as I prayed for him that it will get better,” Ms Wafula said.
Some of the foreigners who were rescued from Myanmar labour camps by Thai authorities.
Photo credit: Pool
On January 7, 2026, he told the wife that in about a week from then, he would be home. He explained that he would be deported. That plan turned out to be hot-air, and days later, Ms Wafula still worries about her husband’s health and life.
“I don’t have peace. I worry about him. I worry if he is fine wherever he is,” Ms Wafula says. But what worries her the most is his last message that wherever he will be, there may never be internet connectivity. That’s how he went off radar.
When they last talked, the wife said, he said “the plan to have them repatriated had reached a dead end.”
“The children are suffering,” a devastated Wafula said. “But I also don't know if my husband is okay. I have no peace.”
Then there is Victor Kipruto, the husband of Eunice Kavini who parted with Sh150,000 to secure a job in Thailand. All went as per plan until he got to Thailand and everything, as he thought, changed for the worse.
“He was told it’s a marketing role. But it was a scamming job,” his wife said. “If they don’t meet individual targets, they would beat them.”
Somehow, the wife says, her husband was trafficked to Myanmar. Then war broke out following disputed elections and since being detained, they have never talked.
The last signal that he sent that was proof of life was a good morning text at around 5am sometime back.
Bound by the same fate is Diana Gatwiri who even secured a repatriation ticket for her husband Fredrick Mwenda.
Her 34-year-old husband left the country for Myanmar in August 2024 through Thailand for a “digital sales job” that never was. It turned out it was a scamming job.
Her husband often complained that as much as he wanted to opt out, it was always difficult because he was in a foreign land with little cash and surveillance. They were even warned that if you attempt to flee, you would be killed.
138 Ethiopians, 23 Kenyans rescued from Myanmar slavery camps.
Photo credit: Pool
Since childhood, Alice Wanjiru has known Irene Wanjiru, her elder sister, as someone who doesn't overshare. So much that whenever she opens up about a situation, it is likely to be so dire.
Raised by a single mother, Irene is the first born of five and mostly keeps to herself, her sister said, because she doesn't want her siblings to be worried or anything like that.
Irene, who left for Thailand, only intimated to her sister that the job “was not what she expected when she left Nairobi for Bangkok.
It had not panned out as expected. Days passed and Alice became worried about her sister. Then she emailed the concerns to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs about the fate of her elder sister and 38 others.
“I write on behalf of the families of 39 Kenyan citizens, among them my sister, who were victims of human trafficking and scam operations in Myanmar,” Alice wrote to the ministry.
They had been informed, she wrote, that after being rescued from a scam centre, the group was placed in a military holding facility and later transferred to a prison on January 7.
Since then, families have received no communication or official update regarding their whereabouts, welfare, or the steps being taken to facilitate their return to Kenya.
As families of the more than three dozen Kenyans, she explained that they were “experiencing immense distress due to the prolonged silence and uncertainty”.
To her email, which the Nation has seen, the ministry responded that their hands were tied but had “met with the Myanmar officials in their embassy at Bangkok” on January 15, 2026, and requested for expedited release of the 39 for repatriation.
“We cannot give timelines since the Myanmar government is a sovereign country, hence we have no control over their internal processes,” the ministry’s response sent from an address provided on January 22 read.
The 39, the Kenyan government said in the email, were moved by Myanmar authorities from Watwave scam compound which was considered unsafe to Hpa-An prison area “which is safe”.
The ministry said it had further created a next of kin WhatsApp group to facilitate communication and coordinate return of the 39.
But what the next of kin found baffling was how they were initially asked to pay air tickets for their kin at a cost of Sh70,540 by January 9, that their relatives were travelling to Nairobi a week later. That trip never happened.
Instead, days later, someone, who they believe was an official in the ministry who was engaging them on the WhatsApp group shared what was the last hammer on the straw. That their kin, a court in Myanmar ruled, had been jailed for a year.
“Good evening, I regret to inform you that we have just received official communication dated 30th January that the Myanmar court has finally decided to imprison the 39 Kenyans for 1 year,” the official believed to be from the Kenyan embassy in Thailand texted on the WhatsApp group.
“This is in contrast to the earlier communication of January 19, that they have been cleared. I guess they may decide to jail the whole group of 485 without releasing anyone. I am sorry about that but as an Embassy we have done all we could including going to their Embassy to negotiate but the court has decided otherwise. Thanks,” the official added, accompanying this text with a screenshot of what is believed to be the court’s ruling.
As much as the screenshot can reveal, Myanmar authorities from Hpa-An Township Police Station found 39 Kenyans in contravention of their laws having illegally “entered to Myanmar and performed illegal online scamming work at Bamboo Forest Site” and the courts imprisoned them for a year.
As at the time of publication, the Foreign Affairs PS Korir Sing’oei had not responded to the questions raised by the Nation .
However, the Hansard of March 5, 2025 shows nominated MP Irene Mayaka had put to task the chairperson of the Departmental Committee on Defence, Intelligence and Foreign Relations regarding the safety and security of Kenyans stranded in Myanmar.
Since 2022, the nominated MP argued, hundreds of Kenyans have fallen victim to an elaborate human trafficking syndicate operating under the guise of lucrative jobs offered in Thailand.
Many, she said, are lured with promises of employment as customer service agents, drivers, and waiters, among others. However, upon arrival in Bangkok, they are kidnapped and transported to the border town of Mae Sot, from where they are smuggled into Myanmar.
