A group of 23 Brazilians is stranded in Madagascar, an island nation off the southeast coast of Africa, without passports and waiting for repatriation after falling victim to a human trafficking network that runs online scam operations in Southeast Asia. According to the NGO The Exodus Road Brazil, they were lured by false promises of jobs abroad and ended up in Cambodia, where they say they were forced to carry out internet fraud targeting victims back in Brazil.
The case fits a pattern that authorities and humanitarian groups have documented in Southeast Asia in recent years: criminal gangs recruit workers from several countries with job offers, hold them captive and force them to run digital fraud. This time, the network exploited a shared language. According to the NGO, the Brazilians targeted victims in Brazil, while trafficked Mozambicans went after targets in Portugal. The scams included fake approaches in the name of Brazil's Federal Police and the so-called romance scam, in which criminals simulate love relationships to extract money from victims.
For Brazil, the episode has become a consular case. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, known as Itamaraty, told G1 it is providing the appropriate consular assistance and remains in contact with local authorities about the case. The Federal Public Defender's Office (Defensoria Pública da União, DPU) has also called on the ministry to support the group's return, according to the newspaper Correio. The deadlock is practical: the family of two of the victims says the passports will only be handed back once return tickets are bought, quoted at around R$ 5,500 per person to São Paulo, money the families say they do not have.
From job promise to captivity
Among the 23 Brazilians are two sisters from Uberaba, in the state of Minas Gerais, who traveled with the promise of working in Thailand, one as a hairdresser at a beauty salon and the other as a receptionist. Their brother, who asked not to be identified, told TV Integração that the family spoke with the two women every day and only grew suspicious when they could not send money home, blaming a large debt.
"That was when, with great shame, one of my sisters told me that in fact they had been trafficked and were being held captive, forced to run these online scams," the brother said.
According to The Exodus Road Brazil, after almost five months of exploitation the group was taken from Cambodia to Madagascar on August 19, during a police operation against the network made up of trafficked Brazilians and Mozambicans. Fourteen Brazilians were detained for about three days and the rest for roughly five, with all of them released by August 22. Relatives say men and women were held separately, some in small windowless rooms with poor food. Once freed without their passports, the Brazilians went to the airport, where the NGO advised them to stay because of the risk of being pursued by the criminal organization. A local entity later took them in, and they remain housed with food and basic supplies provided by missionaries in the area.
Despite the families' accounts, Cintia Meirelles, a humanitarian affairs specialist and The Exodus Road's representative in Brazil, cautions that it is not possible to say that all 23 are trafficking victims. "It is up to the Brazilian authorities to investigate the situation of each member of the group individually," she told G1. People from the states of Sergipe and Bahia are also said to be among the group, according to G1 and the news site A Voz No Campo. Until the return materializes, the case exposes a logistical standoff over repatriation: on one side, Itamaraty negotiates with the Malagasy authorities; on the other, the families try to raise money for the tickets, the condition for the documents to be returned.