A Kenyan survivor of Southeast Asia’s notorious cyber-scam trafficking networks has secured a historic victory in the Employment and Labour Relations Court, marking one of the country’s strongest legal responses to transnational human trafficking.
Justice Byram Ongaya ruled that a group of Kenyan recruiters trafficked the young man into a heavily fortified scam compound in Myanmar. According to the judgment, the recruiters escorted him through Nairobi’s Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, monitored him via WhatsApp throughout his flight, and later handed him over to criminal syndicates operating at the Thai-Myanmar border.
The court awarded the survivor Ksh. 5 million in compensation, recognizing the extensive physical and psychological torture he endured. He was among 78 Kenyans rescued and repatriated after months of brutality inside Myanmar’s cyber-scam compounds. He was a university student at the time, having put his studies on hold after being promised what seemed like a lucrative job opportunity in Thailand only to be trafficked into a criminal enterprise spanning multiple countries.
The company implicated in his trafficking, Gratify Solutions International Ltd, was registered in October 2024, just two months before facilitating his travel. Its listed directors and shareholders are Ann Njeri Kihara and Virginia Wacheke Muriithi.
“My agent was Virginia Muriithi. I paid her a commission of 200,000 and the process was very fast. In two weeks the visa was out. When we arrived it was not good. We were not being paid. Sometimes we were taken to the military and beaten,” the survivor recounted.
Once on Thai soil, smugglers brought him and other victims into Myanmar, where the victims would be confined in scam compounds and trained to run elaborate online fraud schemes.
“You go to Instagram and search rich kids in Dubai, those with flashy cars and perfect photos. Those are the people you use as your character,” he explained.
Advocate Lillian Nyangasi detailed the extreme torture victims endured for failing to meet scam targets. “Inside the compounds they are given targets. For instance, they would be told to meet a target of 5 million US dollars per week and if you don’t, the punishments are very psychological. They lock you up in dark rooms,” she said.
“Sometimes they make you stand on very sharp stones while carrying 20-litre jerrycans of water on your head for up to 24 hours. They feed you on frogs and snakes. Sometimes they put you in very dehumanising circumstances. They are forced into sodomy. They are forced into drugs.”
The evidence brought before the court, including M-Pesa records and WhatsApp conversations, connected Virginia Wacheke, Ann Kihara, and Boniface Owino to Gratify Solutions International Ltd, thus identifying their involvement in trafficking.
Principal Judge Ongaya held that the respondents subjected the petitioner to slavery, servitude, forced labor, degrading treatment, and unlawful restriction of movement in clear contravention of constitutional rights. He ordered them to pay Ksh. 5 million by February 1, 2026, in addition to covering the costs of the petition.
“They were not compliant with the National Employment Agency requirements for lawfully recruiting and exporting Kenyans for labour,” advocate Nyangasi added.
Looking ahead, the survivor said his priority is to relieve his family of financial burden. “My plan after compensation is to pay the debts because they are stressing my parent. Once they are cleared, I want to go back to school,” he said.
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