Month: December 2025

Manipulated by my naiveté

I used to trust people easily, thinking everyone was good. Perhaps it was due to my naiveté and lack of experience. I was born into a respectable family during a difficult time in my country, marked by conflict and crisis. This forced us to move constantly.

I studied from a young age with the goal of becoming a professional. I graduated, completed my military service, and then entered university to study commercial engineering. I worked during the day in private security and had several close friends from university.

I didn’t understand how illegal businesses operated or how seemingly good people could professionally deceive and manipulate others.

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A truck-full of lies

I was born in 1989 in western Mongolia. I lived with my wife and our two-and-a-half-year-old son. My wife graduated from university in 2011 and works as an accountant, earning a monthly income. I work as a heavy truck driver, and my monthly income is around 3 million tugrug. Together, our household income is substantial for our country (approximately $1280 USD). Our immediate and extended families all live in the same area. We were married in 2020, and I finished building our house in 2019, thanks to my job.

In my entire life, I had never had any trouble with the law. I’ve never used drugs or abused alcohol, and I have spent my life working and caring for my family. My international travel was limited to five trips: a one-week holiday in Russia, three work trips to China in 2014, 2016, and 2018, and the trip in question to South America and Hong Kong between May 30 and June 6, 2024.

I went on the trip with the hope of earning extra money for my family. When I left Mongolia, I was unaware that I was being recruited to transport drugs. I was lied to, and only upon arrival in South America was I forced to transport dangerous drugs inside my body.

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Free Thailand holiday trap

The incident occurred in April 2024.  

I was in debt to the bank for about 200,000 HKD due to accumulated medical expenses for my mother-in-law cancer treatment. At the time, I had a quarrel with my wife and she asked for a divorce. I was feeling extremely down. Suddenly, I received a phone call offering a free trip including airfare and hotel  to Thailand. Desperate for any form of escape, I accepted the offer, failing to recognize it as the precise moment I was targeted for exploitation.

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The nail that sealed my coffin

I am 76 years old and I was born in Lima, Peru. I am single and I have two children, one 45 years old and a 35-year-old daughter, but I have not heard anything from them in more than 30 years. My closest relative is (or was?) My 65-year-old sister, who had been hospitalized for breast cancer since before my trip to Hong Kong. Now I don’t know if he’s still alive because I have no way to call, since I don’t remember the numbers because they are on the phone that the police seized and there is no way to get it back or to be able to ask for the numbers, since it is part of the evidence.

I lived in Lima in a family house, but I was robbed by bad people and I was left living on the street. I didn’t have a job since at my age it’s difficult to find a job. Sometimes I was a security guard for cars and I could get to eat and sleep in a hotel of 20 soles a night (something like 8 dollars USD). Sometimes I had to beg for food at a restaurant when they were about to close.

Just one of those days, a man saw me in the restaurant asking for food. I remember him staring at me and, when I left, he came out to meet me a few meters from there and called me.

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