Chinese national missing in Thailand rescued, embassy warns of shady job offers

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BEIJING (Reuters) -A Chinese national who went missing in Thailand after accepting a photoshoot job has been rescued, according to China’s embassy in Bangkok, which cautioned Chinese citizens against simply accepting job offers.

The embassy said in a statement that the rescue of a person with the surname Zhong was a joint effort of various parties but did not release details. The embassy did not give the person’s full name or reveal their gender.

China’s state-backed local media reported on Friday that a 23-year-old Chinese man by the surname Zhong had been tricked and trafficked into Myanmar after arriving in Thailand for a magazine cover photoshoot in early June.

His sister, who received a suspicious call from him weeks ago when he was in an unidentified location in Myanmar, had reported him missing to police in Guangzhou and Bangkok, Chinese state broadcaster CCTV said.

The embassy in Bangkok warned Chinese citizens to be vigilant against dubious “high-paying jobs” overseas, clarifying that Thailand requires foreign nationals to obtain appropriate permits to work there.

The warning comes as concerns about human trafficking and fraudulent employment schemes targeting Chinese nationals abroad grow.

Criminal networks have trafficked hundreds of thousands of people to scam compounds across Southeast Asia, many along the Thai-Myanmar border, where victims are forced to work in illegal online schemes, according to the United Nations.

The latest incident echoes a similar case that caught national interest in January, when a 31-year-old Chinese actor was duped into a film job in Thailand only to be kidnapped and taken to an online scam compound in Myanmar to work. He was eventually freed by Thai police.

After that case, China and Thailand agreed to set up a coordination centre in Bangkok to investigate and combat the scam complexes.

The Chinese embassy in Myanmar published a long notice on its WeChat account on Friday addressing the “emergence of new telecommunication network fraud methods”.

It listed tips and 20 key phrases to look out for, aimed at educating the public in identifying frauds.

(Reporting by Liz Lee and Shi Bu; Editing by Jacqueline Wong and Michael Perry)