Just over a year ago, Anowar Islam, 30, was illegally smuggled into Thailand where he picked up the tricks of the migrant smuggling trade; he was yesterday arrested on suspicion of operating a migrant smuggling business of his own.
Anowar remained in Thailand for nearly a year, learning the business of migrant smuggling and making contact with receivers of smuggled migrants before returning home to Bangladesh to set up shop for himself.
A Rapid Action Battalion team arrested Anowar, son of Rustom Ali of Ukhia police station in Cox’s Bazar, along with eight other migrant smugglers early yesterday.
Following his arrest, he was placed in front of the media at RAB headquarters, where he described his path to becoming a migrant smuggler.
Anowar told reporters that he did not study past class five. He said he started driving a Jeep, locally known as Chander Gari, to support his family.
In 2014, while working as a Jeep driver, he met a man who said he could get Anowar into Thailand at a very cheap rate.
He went to Teknaf to meet the broker.
Anowar told the media that he was transported to Thailand in a succession of small trawlers with his legs and hands tied with rope.
“They kept us in a small room below deck and we changed trawlers a number of times during the journey,” he said.
“The people piloting the trawlers were from Myanmar and did not speak our language. For this reason, when we asked for water or food they would not give us any and used to beat us,” Anowar said.
Anowar said two migrants died during the journey and their dead bodies were thrown into the sea.
“Finally, when we reached Thailand, we were kept in a room called the ‘reception room’ after crossing the jungle,” he said.
“There, I found some people who spoke our language and they asked me to call my family and have some money sent,” Anowar said, adding that he was free to move on after his smugglers were paid Tk1.80 lakh.
“I worked in a garbage factory for six months and later started working at a construction site.
“But accidentally, I broke my hand and leg while working. So I came back home,” he said.
Anowar returned to driving a Jeep but also stayed in touch with Faruq, his contact in the migrant smuggling network, through whom he now helps would-be migrants connect with smugglers for a Tk500 fee.
“I make some easy money and transport people. I do not know anything more,” Anowar said, distancing himself from the migrant smuggling network.
But RAB sources said Anowar had been in contact over the phone with would-be migrants. They said he helped arrange their passage to Malaysia and provided them with transportation to their port of departure in Teknaf.
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime describes migrant smuggling as the “procurement, in order to obtain, directly or indirectly, a financial or other material benefit, of the illegal entry of a person into a State Party of which the person is not a national or a permanent resident.”
The UN distinguishes migrant smuggling from human trafficking which involves the use or threat of use of force, coercion, abduction or purchasing of consent from a person’s guardians to ship them off for purposes of exploitation.