79 Testimony collected for this report reveals a widespread and systematic pattern of Thai authorities transferring Rohingya refugees from immigration detention centers and government-run shelters to a transnational criminal syndicate involved in human trafficking. Consistent testimony suggests that the practice of selling Rohingya refugees to traffickers en masse took place for several consecutive years.255 For example, “Mohammed T.” told Fortify Rights about his experience in a Thai immigration detention center in Ranong Province when he was 18-years old after Thai authorities arrested him and others from a human-trafficking camp on a mountain island in January 2013: At first, some local Muslims provided some good food [for us in detention] but later that stopped. When the local Muslims didn’t provide food, we suffered a lot. In one room, there were 70 to 100 people. There were metal bars on all four sides. The wall was approximately two and a half feet tall and then metal bars. We couldn’t go outside. I was there for 11 months.256 Less than a year after arriving in the immigration detention center, Mohammed T. said that Thai authorities handed him and others over to human traffickers. He recalled: “[The Thai authorities] had weapons but no uniforms when they handed us over to the dallals.”257 Mohammed T. spent several months in a human-trafficking camp on the Malaysia-Thailand border, where he witnessed multiple deaths, buried victims in mass graves under the direction of his captors, and eventually suffered paralysis, apparently due to nutritional deficiencies.258 He eventually escaped and recovered in a mosque in southern Thailand. Similarly, Foyas, 20, recalled his experience in a Thai immigration detention center in 2013 after Thai authorities raided a warehouse where traffickers held him for seven days following his arrival to Thailand: After nine months [in Thai immigration detention in Songkhla Province in southern Thailand], local communities came and requested that we be released. After that, the [state agency redacted] said they would release us. They sent us to another [detention center] in Ranong [in southern Thailand]. They said they would send us to Myanmar. After that, a group of traffickers arrived. We were there along with 50 [Rohingya] people. They took us in a car at midnight from the detention center. Then at 9 a.m., we arrived to Ranong. After we arrived in Ranong, they took us to another [detention center] and provided us some food. Then they took us on a boat. Then a big boat arrived, and we all got on the bigger boat. The Thai [state agency redacted] put us on a small boat operated by Thai, Shan, and Burmese [traffickers]. The boat was empty when we got on it. From 8 p.m. to 6 p.m. we were on that boat. During that time, it was raining heavily. [The traffickers] took us to the mountains.259 Foyas spent more than 20 days in a mountainside human-trafficking camp, where the traffickers tortured him and demanded US$2,000 (approximately 6,800 Malaysian Ringgit) in exchange for his release from the camp.260 In a recorded phone call between a Rohingya man in Yangon, Myanmar negotiating for Foyas’ release and an armed Rohingya trafficker holding Foyas captive, the camp255 See, for example, Fortify Rights interviews with #05 and #50, Bangkok, Thailand and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, August 10 and September 23, 2014. Using a hidden camera, filmmakers Jason Motlagh and James Hall also documented testimony from a human trafficker in Thailand who spoke about making payments to Thailand authorities. “They used to demand 2,000 Thai Baht (US$65) per person or 100,000 Thai Baht (US$3,200) for a lump sum payment, so my bosses just paid a lump sum.” “Outcast: Adrift with Burma’s Rohingya,” Al Jazeera. 256 Fortify Rights interview with #43, Songkhla Province, Thailand, September 17, 2014. 257 Ibid. 258 Ibid. 259 Fortify Rights interview with #19, Pahang State, Malaysia, August 13, 2014. 260 Ibid.