Malagasy friend in Mauritius in need of help

Hello Rishi and Bhavna,

First of all many thanks to the both of you for having replied to my request. With my friend's authorisation, I am sending you a couple of additional details regarding this Malagasy Immigrant:

1) His complete name is Laimitombohita Jean R, but mostly known as Vonjy by his intimate friends and family members. Personally, I have known him only a couple of weeks ago, when he was introduced to me by my son's private tutor, as both he and Vonjy are part of the Assembly of God in Antananarivo, Madagascar. Vonjy was my son's guitar tutor for a couple of weeks on Sundays until he moved to Mauritius, but he was also working full-time as an Accountant in a bank in Antananarivo.

2) Vonjy, a couple of months ago, got in touch with a particular, who pretended to be a recruitment agent, and who "helped" him to find a job opportunity in Mauritius. According to the details that he gave to me, this recruitment agent was working from home, there were many people who came to see him as an intermediary to find jobs overseas, and it was an unregistered business. The so-called agent told Vonjy that there was an opportunity for him to work as an Accountant for a company called Sandy International Ltd, which was supposed to be a micro financing company. I never heard about this company before and did some research on Google, where I found this link, which however didn't present many details about the existence of the company. The lack of details gave me some doubts about the viability of the company.

3) Two weeks ago, Vonjy received a letter, but from a company for which the address was totally different from the one which was given to him by the agent. I don't know if you will be able to open the link of the letter, but instead of a letter of offer from S  Ltd, it was a letter from a completely different company, I ltd located in Port Louis, which is, according to the link, a sales and distribution company in Port Louis, which belongs to a sino-mauritian company, and which had nothing to do with what Vonjy expected. In case you cannot open the letter Vonjy gave, the letter was addressed to the Passport and Immigration Service from Airport of Mauritius to assist Vonjy at his arrival in Mauritius, and to accommodate him to his flat in Port Louis, located at 42 Arsenal Street. He was supposed, according to the letter to work as a C C, whereas the agency in Madagascar mentioned that he would work as an Accountant for S Ltd. There was no contract attached to that letter. His date of arrival was the 08th of July 2023 evening, and he was supposed to leave on the 17th of July (ie before yesterday) back to Antananarivo.

3) However, when he arrived in Mauritius, on the 10th of July, he started to work for another company which was affiliated with I Ltd, called A Ltd, but the job that he was supposed to do for those people was completely different from what he expected, and had nothing to do with the job description of C C, for which I couldn't find any job description on Google. However, I saw the job description for the post of C C, for which I have sent you an example through this hyperlink and which is a job mostly linked with International Shipping. But this is not what his bosses are making him doing actually. According to what he told me, the tasks that are given to him look like exactly the tasks given to a cleaner. I am copying and pasting word for word how Vonjy described to me the tasks that he is doing: "J'ai réalisé des tâches polyvalent ici dès que j'arrive j'attends le monsieur qui ouvre le magasin, je fais sortir les 2 motos, et les côtés parking, après prends le balai et la pèle et faire lé balayage du fond de la couloir , prend la mop et essuie les magasins, ranger des cartons, soulever des cartons, vérifier toutes les poubelles dans toutes les étages et les jeter les ordures avant de quitter le magasins"

4) Finally, according to what he told me, since he arrived in Mauritius, his bosses confiscated his passport, whereas he was supposed to leave on the 17th of July according to his letter. The passport is with the Visa and Immigration Office since the 17th of July, which is a Monday and which is the day he was supposed to go back to Antananarivo according to his letter, though his flight ticket was a one-way ticket! Vonjy was told that he would be confiscated his passport for a duration of 3 months, after which they would give him back his passport! He arrived in Mauritius with a tourist visa, which was arranged by his managers, and despite having a tourist visa, they forced him to work in those horrible conditions, whereas according to the Labour Law in Mauritius, it is strictly prohibited to work for a foreigner with a touristic visa. We are afraid that Vonjy has been involved, without knowing it, within a network of human trafficking, because of those inhumane people.

Based on what I have just written previously, i will send an email to the Malagasy Embassy and see if I can contact the Visa and Immigration Service for Vonjy, in case they can do something for him.

Thank you so much to anyone who can assist us again, and thank you Bhavna for your help and references, which I already sent to him on WhatsApp.

Kind regards,

UJB