Exported for Exploitation
How a Fake Job Offer Led Me into a Trap in India
At the end of September 2024, I took a leap of faith. After being offered a senior position that promised international exposure, legal compliance, and ethical corporate culture, I boarded an early morning flight from the UK to India. I had done my due diligence. I even verified the employer through the Indian Embassy in Birmingham, seeking assurance before making such a big move.
I was promised a grand welcome, a smooth transition into a role matching international pharmaceutical standards, and a team that supported regulatory excellence.
But what unfolded was not a career milestone — it was calculated abuse. The job turned out to be temporary, deceptive, and malicious, a trap laid to bring me to India under false pretences, where I was systematically mistreated.
Flight and First Red Flags
The signs were there from the start. Rude airport staff, a stressful flight, and overwhelming heat greeted me in Delhi. There, I was bullied by airport staff about my carry-on bag, unfairly threatened with being reported to Border Security for simply standing my ground. I felt humiliated and isolated, but I kept reminding myself that this was just temporary discomfort for long-term gain.
A Welcome That Was Never Meant to Happen
I landed in West India expecting a woman colleague to greet me at the airport, as promised by my reporting manager. That, too, was a lie.
No one showed up.
A confused driver eventually found me. He couldn’t navigate with Google Maps and claimed the company might be shut that day. He drove me through remote, unsafe areas until I lost mobile connectivity. Terrified, I told him to drive back toward an area with better signal.
I tried contacting HR — no response. I reached my reporting manager, who was vacationing in Thailand and not due back until midweek. After hours of pleading and dozens of calls, I was booked into a hotel for just three days. It was already clear: the grand welcome was just a sales pitch.
Day One: A Setup Disguised as a Job
The next day, I travelled over 25 km one way on a dangerous highway to what was supposed to be a modern work campus. Instead, I found an isolated, highly polluted site with no liveable housing nearby as if the building was shut for a long time, and an HR team that appeared unprepared and evasive.
There were no proper induction materials, no filtered water, and water from the coffee machine was visibly contaminated. I had jet lag, breathing issues which I never had earlier, and mounting dread. A co-worker offered to drop me back since there is no public transport.
The entire setup began to feel engineered, not professional — and certainly not pharmaceutical for sure, having an HR investigation background. Like I’d been lured into a twisted, live-action cruel version of Big Boss controlled by a tightly-knit inner circle.
Guest House Horror
Once my manager returned, I was moved to a so-called guest house. The conditions were terrifying: mold-covered walls, spider webs, monkeys and vultures screaming at night, and even snakes near the windows. The linen hadn’t been touched in months. I felt trapped, sick, and betrayed.
I demanded to be moved and was finally shifted to a low-budget hotel, as if this were a personal favour — despite it being their responsibility to begin with.
Meanwhile, everyone else kept pretending that the food, lodging, and workplace were somehow world-class except a few who admitted the fact. It was surreal — like walking through a cruelly scripted illusion.
Harassment, Coercion, and Collapse
Forced to carpool with my manager, I faced relentless pressure. He demanded money. He made sexual advances and kept conditions . When I resisted, he warned me: reporting him would only backfire because of his “powerful connections”, which apparently turned out to be true.
I did report him at company.
That’s when the retaliation escalated. I was transferred to distant, exhausting job locations requiring 120–130 km of daily travel which was against the offer terms. My medical condition worsened. Despite being on antidepressants and experiencing respiratory infections, I received no medical or professional accommodation. I was asked to visit the old manufacturing units which were for sure appears faced out not matching to the pharmaceuticals standards and could be very dangerous for my health and life.
There was no public transport to this location- very dangerous commute with high speed heavy vehicles rushing, heaps of garbage of the sides, pools filled algae , in this scorching heat. There was no safety or basic amenities available nearby.
I had to make really expensive travel arrangements which took major part of my pay, which was already difficult to recover from them. My health got worst and I knew I was surrounded with dangerous people I can not trust, resultantly early in 2025, I could not continue.
There was no work HR work I was assured of, I was not participating in any meeting or any other meaningful work. Sometimes they assigned me a data entry job which was not required and was a duplicate work.
I realized I was not dealing with a company. I was trapped in a fabricated environment, hostile to questioning, resistant to truth, and designed to break me down physically and mentally.
And Still, No Justice
Despite enduring months of mistreatment, no case has been filed by the local police. It's now been 7 to 8 months, and I still don’t know why I was targeted, or what the real agenda behind this “job” was.
I filed Right to Information (RTI) requests, sought court intervention — but both remained silent or evasive, refusing to disclose the actual nature of the work or address my concerns. Instead, I’ve been repeatedly pushed from one location to another, worsening my health, aimed to disturb my mental health, and finances.
Each unanswered question raises another:
Was this a job? Or was it a front for something far more sinister?