15 broke TN youth starving in Malaysia seek help to return

A total of 15 youth were cheated by agents, posing as recruiters and representatives of a private firm in Malaysia and left stranded at Johor Bahru district in Malaysia after collecting Rs 1.8 lakh from each. Vinothkumar, a resident of Hosur in Krishnagiri and a victim, had appealed to Migrant Employees Education for Transformation, Prevention and Protection Union (MEETPPU), an NGO, to help them to  return to their natives and retrieve the money paid to the agents.

Vinothkumar, in an email to Express, said they had spent almost all the money and were starving. Christopher, who claimed to be an agent and employee of a private firm said he had been entrusted with the job of recruiting 100 technicians, with a monthly salary of Malaysian Ringgit (MYR) 2,000. They met in November 2012 and Christopher convinced him that every candidate would have to pay Rs 1.8 lakh for visa, processing fee and deposit to the company.

Vinothkumar paid the demanded money in instalments and was sent three tickets of which two were cancelled at the last minute while the last one turned out to be fake. Chistopher apologised and sent a valid ticket later and Vinothkumar reached Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia on October 18.

“I reached Malaysia along with another candidate Surya Kumar and was shocked as Arun, the person sent to receive us demanded that we give MYR 1,000 or else he will not take us to Johor Bahru, where we were supposed to join work within the next two days”, he noted. They met Balasubramanian, who was also recruited by Christopher. Balasubramanian said he was staying here for more than 75 days without a job. He along with 9 others had paid Christopher through three of his sub-agents Raja, Murali, and Robin Charles.

“When we took this up with Christopher, he responded that the money he took from us got exhausted in our stay and travel and that he will not repay it”, Vinothkumar said. Tamizhmaran (Villupuram), Siva (Tanjore), Balasubramanian (Thiruvarur), Vijay (Thiruvarur), Kajinimohamad (Pudukottai)Duraimurugan (Kancheepuram),

Premnath (Nagapattinam), Sakthivel (Villupuram), Sarathraj (Puducherry), Tamilarasan (Tirupur), Dharmalingam (Tiruchy), Manojkumar (Theni), Suryakumar (Chennai) and Suresh(Tirupur) are the other 14 youngsters who were stranded with him.

All of them were taken on tourist visas and some of their passports returned by Christopher had stamps as if they had visited Singapore to extend the tourist visa when none of them had done so.

15 broke TN youth starving in Malaysia seek help to return