Investigations
In October, Russian pro-government media outlets started circulating a dramatic story about Dashima Ochirnimaeva, a former lieutenant with the country’s Federal Penitentiary Service who went to Thailand to work as a model but ended up trapped in an illegal call center on the border with Myanmar. There, Chinese mobsters allegedly held her behind barbed wire and threatened to sell her internal organs if she refused to work the phones. At the same time, Kremlin propagandists invented the story of a Ukrainian woman who allegedly lures Russian women to Thailand, where they end up in slavery. According to this made-in-Moscow version of events, it was only thanks to the active efforts of the local GRU station that the former Russian prison guard was rescued. However, Dashima’s real story turned out to be no less remarkable.
“Kidnapped and sold,” “Horror in the jungle,” “The slave was constantly beaten,” and “The Russian woman was kept in inhumane conditions under machine-gun barrels” were among the headlines splashed across Russian pro-government media. “She slept on the floor, was fed only rice, and was occasionally beaten,” said Ilya Ilyin, Moscow’s consul in Thailand.
From the Federal Penitentiary Service in Russia to network marketing in Turkey
Dashima Ochirnimaeva was born into a large family with long-standing traditions. Her great-grandfather, grandfather, and most close relatives were professional sheep shearers. As a teenager, Dashima herself went to Manchuria with her uncle to earn money. Her father Tumen was the only one who broke with family tradition, joining the GRU special forces as a military medic and later transferring to the 36th Assault Brigade based in Borzya (Zabaykalsky Krai).
After finishing school, the officer’s daughter enrolled at the Perm Institute of the Federal Penitentiary Service (FSIN). She played soccer for the local Dynamo team and wrote her graduation thesis on “Criminal liability for the illegal circulation of weapons in the republics of Armenia and Kazakhstan”.
After completing her studies, FSIN lieutenant Ochirnimaeva was assigned as a guard at Correctional Colony No. 10 in the village of Gornoye in Primorsky Krai, where 700 women are serving sentences. However, she quickly became disillusioned with the profession and resigned.
The regional FSIN office took Ochirnimaeva to court, as she had not completed the mandatory five-year service requirement after graduating from the institute. The court ruled that Dashima repay 754,000 rubles ($9,300) spent on her education, plus 102,000 rubles ($1,250) in state fees.
Before bailiffs could start collection proceedings, Ochirnimaeva flew to Turkey and went into network marketing. She told clients she was making millions while sitting on a couch and earning around 30,000 rubles ($370) a day. “Income in just a few days. My personal help and support. No experience needed, I train you from scratch. You work from two to seven hours a day,” Dashima promised potential clients.
Dashima Ochirnimaeva: Start earning 100,000 rubles a month before the end of this month. Dashima Ochirnimaeva on freelance and income.
It was clear she had never earned anything close to millions, and the Russian woman took whatever jobs she could find. Early in 2025, Ochirnimaeva read a Telegram post recruiting photo models to work in Thailand. The ad claimed monthly earnings starting at $5,000, promised contracts with major advertising firms, and offered accommodation in a good hotel.
After retouching her photo (according to another version, Dashima sent in a picture of her younger sister Erzhen), she wrote in the application that she had previously served in the Russian military system and spoke decent English.
The employer in Bangkok paid for her flight from Turkey. Naturally, the deception became obvious once she arrived. Dashima was told to reimburse the cost of the tickets plus interest for “moral” damages, and her passport was taken as a deposit. She had no money.
However, Ivan Rybar, Russia’s vice-consul in the Chinese province of Guangzhou, offered a completely different version of events. He claimed that Dashima saw the recruitment ad not in Turkey but while she was in Laos. Then, he said, “she was forcibly put into a car and taken by back roads through fields and forests into Myanmar.”
In any event, Dashima really did end up in an illegal scam center in the buffer zone between Thailand and Myanmar, where she was forced to con wealthy callers out of money. The zone is controlled by several Maoist-inspired groups engaged in an armed struggle against Myanmar’s government, and Chinese gangs specializing in cybercrime also have a presence. One of the most prominent local mobsters, a Macau native known as Broken Tooth, is on the U.S. sanctions list.
Broken Tooth served 14 years for financial fraud, and after his release he leased land from the Karen people (the long-neck tribe) near the Thai border. The long-neck name comes from the tribe’s women, who, in an effort to protect themselves from predators, have for centuries worn brass rings around their necks, stretching them to twice the normal length by the time they reach their thirties.
On the leased land, Broken Tooth built an entire mini-city with its own infrastructure, including online casinos, scam centers, restaurants, and brothels. Some 40,000 people from China, Russia, India, Sri Lanka, Laos, and Cambodia work there.
Most of the city’s population either had legal troubles back home, or, like Dashima, were sold to pay off a debt. From time to time, Thai special forces enter the buffer zone — switching off electricity and the internet in advance — to carry out document checks. Some people are taken to immigration centers, but many soon escape back to Myanmar.
“Slavery in Myanmar”
For two months, Ochirnimaeva worked on a team of female scammers targeting Russian-speaking marks in the CIS and the Baltic states. Phone numbers of potential victims are pulled from major companies’ websites or leaked databases.
Typically, the male scammers pose as financial consultants or IT specialists and offer technical support. Female scammers tell callers that they were orphaned due to a terrible car accident and need a sponsor, or they propose launching a joint crypto exchange or online casino, or they talk about an abusive husband they plan to flee from and ask for money for a plane ticket.
“A woman named Karima contacted me on a dating site. She started flirting and then said she trades furniture. She said she used to live in Bishkek, paints some unique pictures, and dreams of holding an exhibition of her works in Europe. She said her paintings were in Laos and asked for money to relocate, but I didn’t fall for it,” said Alexei, a resident of Narva in Estonia.
Female scammers collect 10% from every successful operation, and those who fail to meet their targets are allegedly shaved bald, thrown into a basement, and fed one cup of rice per day. Reserve FSIN lieutenant Ochirnimaeva ended up among those punished.
Using a friend’s phone, she managed to reach her father, Tumen Ochirnimaev, who is serving in Ukraine with Russia’s 36th Motorized Rifle Brigade, and asked him to get her out of Myanmar. “They’re not forcing me to do anything, because they simply locked me in a barracks and demanded money for my release. They were planning to sell me,” Dashima complained to her father.
Left: Dashima’s father, Tumen Ochirnimaev. Right: GRU special forces.
Dashima’s father contacted the Foreign Ministry, but all the embassy in Myanmar could do was send a request to local police and issue an official statement “On the kidnapping of Russian citizens and their involvement in illegal activity.” A Foreign Ministry official from the Third Department (who asked not to be named) told The Insider why:
“Our diplomats there simply don’t have any other tools. Back in the USSR, Myanmar — then known as Burma — was called the Asian Cuba, and doors were opened with a kick. They could send our special forces into the jungle and pull out any hostage. After the Soviet collapse, the funding dried up and our Burmese brothers immediately switched to their Chinese patrons. Myanmar’s authorities don’t control the entire country, let alone the buffer zone on the Thai border.”
The GRU, Kremlin propaganda, and the “Ukrainian element”
In Guangzhou, the operation to free their GRU colleague’s daughter was taken up by career military intelligence officer Oleg Den’gin, who works under the cover of an adviser to the Russian consulate. He graduated from the First Faculty of the Military Diplomatic Academy, which trains undercover operatives, and spent many years spying in Shanghai. In Thailand, duties fell to ambassadorial adviser Mikhail Spesivtsev, a GRU colonel who began his service with the 887th Marine Brigade near Baltiysk and, after graduating, from the academy’s First “illegal” faculty, made official visits to the UAE and Greece. Spesivtsev was assisted by Lieutenant Colonel Alexei Boboshko, who previously served at the 136th Special Center at GRU headquarters on Khoroshevskoye Highway (military unit 61535). Media support was assigned to TASS correspondent in Thailand Igor Brovarnik, who had worked in London until 2019, when British authorities revoked his press accreditation and banned him from entering the country. In 2024, Putin awarded Brovarnik the Order of Merit for the Fatherland, 2nd class.
Incidentally, Thailand hosts the largest GRU station in Asia. At the Russian embassy in Bangkok alone, there are four legal spies from the military attaché’s office, and another four GRU officers work under bureaucratic cover (and that’s without counting their “neighbors” from the SVR and the FSB’s Fifth Service).
In addition, the Russian Center in Pattaya actively engages in “cultural and educational” outreach among the Thai population.
The Russian House in Pattaya
Russian naval squadrons also make friendly visits to local seaports.
Russian ambassador to Thailand Yevgeny Tomikhin aboard a Russian frigate
Meanwhile, with encouragement from the Russian Foreign Ministry, state propaganda latched onto the story of the “slave” Ochirnimaeva, and the horrific narratives began. Some “journalists” claimed that guards armed with Kalashnikovs had threatened to kill Dashima and sell her organs. Others told readers that only the Russian woman’s courage and quick thinking were helping her survive. Still others wrote about a supposed Ukrainian woman named Karina who is said to lure Russian women to Myanmar, where they end up in slavery.
“When we walked into the room, I felt sheer terror. She said: ‘What did you expect? You wanted a big salary, to come here for free and get a five-star hotel — sorry, but with you Russians, this is exactly how you should be treated,’” a trafficking victim recounted the alleged words of “Karina.”
“Investigators” from REN TV, apparently with input from the GRU, went even further, producing a special report claiming that the gray zone criminal cluster between Thailand and Myanmar was part of a larger plot to persecute Russians. In the fragmentary footage, blurred faces constantly flash by, along with photographs showing the effects of torture and fences topped with barbed wire.
But the report never explains where this footage was filmed or who exactly was tortured. The segment showed a phone video recorded by a former scam-center employee, Darya Tuzova. “She was recruited in Russia, had her passport taken away, and was forced across the border into Myanmar,” the correspondent intones against ominous background music.
TV viewers were also shown photos from “Karina’s” social media accounts, which display the lifestyle of someone who was evidently earning good money from trafficking Russians. They could also see a partially redacted passport photo page belonging to “Karina.” Notably, The Insider was able to establish that on June 6, 2025, Karina Shramko entered Poland by bus through the Ukrainian checkpoint in Ustyluh and now works in a café there. This means the Ukrainian woman could not have crossed paths with Ochirnimaeva in the buffer zone between Thailand and Myanmar.
On Oct. 7, news arrived that Dashima had been freed. TASS correspondent Brovarnik reported that this happened thanks to the efforts of the Russian embassy in Bangkok and the relevant agencies in Myanmar. Ivan Rymar, a representative of the Russian consulate general in Guangzhou, insisted that the main credit belonged to his office and their Chinese counterparts, who facilitated border crossings for freed victims who no longer had passports in their possession. Before being sent home, Ochirnimaeva herself said: “I thank the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation for saving me and sending me home.”
Meanwhile, a source in military intelligence told The Insider the details of the Russian woman’s rescue: “Our people painted it as if they risked their lives and deserved medals. But that wasn’t how it happened: they contacted Chinese intelligence (we have a cooperation agreement with them). The Chinese reached out to one of the sons of the Karen rebel army commander, Saw Chit Thu, and he pulled out four Russians, including this Dashima. By the way, the long-necks themselves have stakes in the scam centers and illegal casinos and have come under several international sanctions.”
After returning to Chita, Ochirnimaeva planned to give an interview to local media but suddenly vanished from sight. According to some reports, using the new passport issued to her by the Russian embassy in Bangkok, she returned to Thailand. While this article was being prepared, news emerged that the Myanmar army had entered the buffer zone and demolished the mini-city established by Broken Tooth.