IV. Testimony Suggesting Official Complicity in Human Trafficking 80 based trafficker said: “The boss is Thai. We are just working for the Thais . . . The Thai boss bought them from Thai [state agency redacted].”261 In 2014, a known Rohingya human trafficker working with a syndicate in Thailand’s Songkhla Province explained the involvement of some Thai officials in the human-trafficking trade at the time, saying: Some dallals bring the people from Rakhine State or Bangladesh and then sell them to other brokers when they arrive in Ranong [in southern Thailand] or other locations. Sometimes, the [Thai] government arrests the people, and then they hand [the people they arrest] over to the brokers. Mostly [the authorities] hand over the people to the [the traffickers]. They bring them in cars and transfer them to the brokers. The brokers and [authorities] have a connection. The [authorities] sell people [to traffickers] for 6,000 Thai Baht (US$200; 700 Malaysian Ringgit) per head. They transfer the money from bank to bank.262 Another known human trafficker in Songkhla Province, Thailand explained further: If the people are arrested [by Thai authorities], they’re kept in the IDC [immigration detention center] for four or six months, and then they are sent to the border. The brokers can easily buy them again. If [traffickers] charged 60,000 Thai Baht (US$2,000; 7,000 Malaysian Ringgit) originally, and then the captives were bought from the authorities, they would then charge 70,000 Thai Baht (US$2,200; 7,670 Malaysian Ringgit) the second time. From Ranong [in southern Thailand] to the camp it costs 10,000 Thai Baht (US$300; 1,050 Malaysian Ringgit). They have to pay to the [state agency redacted]. This includes the boat fee and transport, everything. It includes many costs, and in total, it is 10,000 Thai Baht (US$300; 1,170 Malaysian Ringgit).263 From 2012 to 2015, Thai authorities conducted “raids” on human-trafficking camps in Thai territory, in some cases publicizing the raids as exercises in crime-fighting or crackdowns. Survivors present during raids allege that the authorities informed the traffickers in advance to ensure the escape of more senior traffickers.264 Sometimes, traffickers left their captives behind; other times, they forced their captives to transfer to new or different camps.265 If the traffickers left people behind, the Thai authorities often detained the survivors. The traffickers would then negotiate with the Thai authorities to re-purchase them. Ula Mya, a 43-year-old Rohingya father of four children from Minbya Township in Myanmar’s Rakhine State, recalled how the Thai authorities “rescued” him from human traffickers only to detain and resell him to another group of human traffickers. When he first arrived in Thailand, traffickers took him and others to a house. He said: 261 Fortify Rights audio recording #34, Yangon, Myanmar, October 29, 2013. See also, “For Myanmar Muslim Minority, No Escape from Brutality,” New York Times. 262 Fortify Rights interview with #38, Songkhla Province, Thailand, September 16, 2014. 263 Fortify Rights interview with #42, Songkhla Province, Thailand, September 17, 2014. 264 One witness testified that traffickers transferred him to three different camps after receiving word that the police might raid their location. Fortify Rights, internal report on human trafficking case, trial monitoring notes, Rachada Criminal Court, Human Trafficking Division, Bangkok, Thailand, 2016. See also, Fortify Rights interviews with human traffickers and human trafficking survivors, 2013-2015. 265 One witness—Mohammad, 13—testified in Thai court that traffickers transferred him to three different camps after receiving word that the [state agency redacted] might raid their location. Another witness—Asi Sul Huq, 16—testified that traffickers confined him to camps for more than one year and transferred him to at least ten different campsites. See, Fortify Rights, internal report on human trafficking case, testimony of Mohammad, 13, and Asi Sul Huq, 16, trial monitoring notes, Rachada Criminal Court, Human Trafficking Division, Bangkok, Thailand, May 10, 2016. See also, Fortify Rights interviews with human traffickers and human trafficking survivors, 2013-2015.