YANGON, Myanmar — Monitoring groups in Myanmar’s largest city have issued an urgent warning over a series of “honey trap” abductions, where men are being lured by women with fake job offers only to be sold into forced military service.
The Rangoon Scout Network (RSN) reported multiple disappearances this week involving men hired for supposed furniture moving or house relocation tasks. On the morning of March 16, 2026, two women approached a trishaw stand near Tamwe Market, hiring two drivers for a moving job. One of the men, identified as 42-year-old U Win Htaik, has not been seen or heard from since.
Local residents and security sources say that the groups behind these abductions are increasingly using women to gain the trust of their targets.
“From what I know, these are all ‘job traps’ designed to fill conscription quotas,” a Yangon-based police source told MPA. “Women are being recruited into these kidnapping gangs because they are less likely to raise suspicion. We recently saw a case in South Okkalapa where a young man was lured away by a woman and ended up in military training. His family only managed to secure his release after paying a substantial ransom.”
The phenomenon of “selling” civilians to the military has intensified since the sham government activated the national conscription law. RSN data suggests that in 2025 alone, at least 16 individuals were documented as being sold to the army after being lured with fake employment opportunities.
Similar reports emerged from South Dagon on March 16, where a 38-year-old man vanished after being hired by a group of women for a relocation task. Earlier in February, three men from Thingangyun Township were also abducted under the guise of moving goods, only to be handed over to military authorities.
The rise of these sophisticated abduction tactics has added a new layer of fear to daily life in Yangon. For the city’s working class—especially those in the informal economy like trishaw drivers and manual laborers—every job offer now carries a potential risk of disappearance.
Rights activists say these “man-hunting” gangs often operate with the tacit approval or direct cooperation of local pro-junta militias and administrators, who are under immense pressure to meet recruitment targets.
As the sham government continues to suffer heavy losses on the battlefield, the streets of Yangon have become a predatory landscape where even a simple request for help moving house can result in being sent to the frontlines of a civil war.
