The owner of a Yangon-based employment agency is accused of recently absconding with more than 2 billion kyat (more than US$950,000) in fees paid by Myanmar workers who had paid the company to secure them jobs in neighbouring countries, according to victims of the alleged scam.
In formal complaints filed with multiple junta departments, a third-party agent and a victim of the fraud accused the Su Paing Win Myint agency of stealing many of the “service charges” of 1.5m to 2m kyat ($713-$250) paid to the company by more than 2,000 prospective migrant workers.
The workers were seeking employment in Thailand and Malaysia and had paid the agency to find them jobs abroad; some reportedly leveraged their land and homes to cover the company’s finder’s fees.
A woman from Bago Region who said she was victimised by Su Paing Win Myint told Myanmar Now that she believed she had been scammed after she did not hear from the agency for three months. Her fee had been 1.5m kyat, and she had also turned over her passport.
“Months went by and I grew suspicious. When I asked for my money and my passport back, they kept stalling and postponing it,” she said on the condition of anonymity. “They told me they’d pay me back in March, so I waited. But the company later appeared to have been shut down and I could not reach them by phone anymore.”
She filed a complaint against the agency with three junta entities: the human trafficking prevention department, the police, and the ministry of labour.
The woman explained that she had helped 100 other villagers apply for employment support through the Su Paing Win Myint agency, implying that they too had lost the funds they had paid to the company.
Another woman who fell victim to the fraud, from Yangon, stated that the agency was still holding her passport, as well as the sum of two payments—of 300,000 kyat ($142) and 1.5m kyat.
The Su Paing Win Myint agency is registered with the Department of Investment and Companies, with an office in South Dagon Township. Despite not being licensed for international recruitment, it was known for its employment connections to fisheries, confectionary factories and power stations in Thailand and Malaysia.
Its directors, Su Paing Win Myint and Sa Aung Myo Kyaw, are also listed as directors for another company named for the second individual. Both were registered under the same address on the same day.
Su Paing Win Myint, who is in hiding, told Myanmar Now that her agency could no longer send workers abroad, citing alleged complications with another company: Star High. Through this entity, she said, they had applied for migrant workers’ registration, but claimed Star High had “conned” them and fled with the money.
She confirmed that her agency was closed in February, but said that she had maintained contact with workers who had paid fees and entrusted their passports to her.
Su Paing Win Myint explained that the total amount owed was “just over 600m kyat” ($285,313) from 1,000 workers, of whom only 200 people were left to pay back.
Other agencies had unfairly scapegoated her company, she added.
“I’ve cut off all connections with them. I have evidence that they threatened me,” she said of the agencies. “I am only hiding for my own safety because of these threats. I am looking for a legal way to manage this.”
The workers’ complaints stated that they had also signed contracts with agencies Star High and KK Idea to work abroad.
Su Paing Win Myint was reportedly told in February by members of the South Dagon junta police that she could not recruit workers without an agency licence, at which time a case was opened against her.
Another employment agency owner estimated that there were at least 10,000 victims of fraud by such companies in Yangon, and said that further education was needed among prospective workers about the dangers of entrusting funds to unlicensed agencies, which he added, are on the rise.
Millions of Myanmar nationals are employed in the fishing, construction, agricultural and industrial sectors in Thailand and Malaysia.
