Chinese held captive by Myanmar underground casino is rescued

A man from Mianyang, Southwest China’s Sichuan Province, was rescued from a Myanmar basement eight days after being held captive by a Myanmar underground casino, the Beijing Youth Daily said in a Wechat post on Monday.

The 34- year- old man named Chen Jun was deceived into going to Myanmar in June by a person he knew from the Internet, who promised him loans. He was taken to a casino in Myanmar and was told that he owed the casino thousands of yuan in debt.

Chen is just one of many such victims, according to police in Southwest China’s Yunnan Province, who said that they had rescued 330 victims in similar cases in 2016 alone.

Unable to pay off the “debt,” Chen was held hostage and had endured continuous physi- cal abuse and insult.

The kidnappers videotaped him being beaten and sent the clip to his family asking for ransom.

The kidnappers contacted Chen’s sister through Wechat and sent her a video of her brother kneeling on the ground, mouth taped, head injured, and being beaten by a man with an iron club.

The kidnappers told her later that Chen owed the casino 50,000 yuan ($ 7441) and asked her to pay off the debt as soon as possible, saying that “they are not sure how many more days he can live.”

On June 26, she went to local police in Mianyang, who helped rescue Chen a day later. “I got out alive, but there are still Chinese people down there in the basement,” said Chen after being rescued on June 28.

China and Myanmar share a border of several thousand kilometers with few natural geographic barriers, an important factor that has contributed to this long- standing issue.