On 27 December 2025, we did a count. We found that we had a total of 114 migrant workers on our case register from three companies that were said to be associated with each other (more men showed up after 27 December). All the men were Bangladeshi, and all had approached TWC2 on or after 4 November 2025, frustrated at not being paid. There were three separate companies involved, though the men say that the companies were all connected with each other. There were four “bosses”, all with Indian or Bangladeshi-sounding names, but when we did a corporate check, we found other names (Singaporean ones) fronting the companies.

The companies didn’t seem to have any projects of their own; instead the men were supplied out to other companies which might have needed extra labour. The workers thus described themselves as “supply workers”, and ended up doing a great variety of tasks, ranging from painting to installation of solar panels, electrical ducting and conveyor belts at Changi Airport. They were also moved around a lot. One week, they’d be at this site, another week, they’d be at another location.

Having spoken to 20 – 30 of them, certain commonalities emerged. The workers were relatively young with a handful under twenty years old. Most (about 65%) were under 25 years old. Another 20% were 29 – 30 years old. All were asked to pay for their jobs, with asked-for amounts ranging from $9,000 to $13,000. We hear these numbers from nearly all first-time Bangladeshi workers, except that for first-time construction workers, these amounts include basic skills training.

Not this group, though. For them, the whole amount would be for just the chance of getting a job. None of them were sent for skills training.

Anxious to land their first jobs in Singapore, they paid. In the majority of cases, payment was made to intermediaries (“agents’) in Bangladesh, and in the local currency (taka). Below is an audio clip wherein we asked seven men how much they paid for their jobs. They speak in “lakhs”, with ten lakh taka roughly equivalent to $10,500. Twelve lakh would be roughly $12,600.

One worker (let’s call him Kalam) told us that the agent had confirmed to him that the ten lakh he (the worker) paid was handed over to one of the bosses.

“My agent, name Mohiuddin. I think he is my boss relative,” Kalam tells us. We’re not sure how he came to the conclusion about the relationship; perhaps it was evident from the body language. Kalam continues: “Mohiuddin say, ‘The ten lakh, I give to Pintu’.”

“Who is Pintu?” we ask.

“My boss.”

In fact, this was the general feeling among the workers – that whilst the agents might have taken a small cut, the bulk of the money went to their bosses. They had hints to this effect even if their agents had not explicitly said so.

Whilst the majority of the men dealt with intermediaries in Bangladesh, a few other workers we spoke with said they (or a family member or a friend) paid directly to one of the bosses, not through any agent. In fact, we even have a bank account number of one of the bosses, seen from a bank transaction slip. In this instance, the worker had been asked to pay into a UOB Bank account, but since he was still in Bangladesh, he asked his friend, who was then working in Singapore, to pay his recruitment fee on his behalf. It was paid in a few installments of $2,000 or $3,000 each time to that UOB account designated by the boss. After having made the payments, the friend sent screenshots of the transaction record to the worker.

Screenshots of the transactions sent to the worker by his friend who paid on his behalf.

This tells us that even when payment in Bangladesh currency had been made to an intermediary, all or nearly all of the money would have been forwarded to the bosses. Our reasoning is this: If the bosses were in some cases taking money directly from the employees they hired, there would be no reason not to expect a similar amount from other employees, even if those other employees dealt through intermediaries.

As mentioned earlier, none of the workers had gone through basic construction skills training, neither in Bangladesh nor in Singapore. Yet, the tasks they were assigned to do seemed indistinguishable from tasks that construction workers usually do.

Most cases still pending

At the time of writing, most cases are still unresolved. However, the workers said that the first few among them who filed salary claims have had their cases settled, with payouts from “insurance”. We believe this would be a reference to the $5,000 security bond that employers have to put up before Work Permits are issued by the Ministry of Manpower (MOM). One condition of the bond is that employers must pay salaries, or else the bond can be forfeited, after which most of the money can be used to reimburse workers what’s due to them and purchase their flight tickets home. Of course, there is an upper limit of $5,000 (more realistically, perhaps $4,500) that can be paid out, and if a worker is owed more than that, the difference will not be covered.

Some of the workers’ claims for unpaid salary were under $4,000, so they are likely to see a reasonably happy outcome if they too get payouts from forfeiture of the security bonds. Those whose unpaid salaries amount to over $4,000 will not be so lucky.

But that’s just the salary arrears. What about the much bigger sums of money taken as consideration for hiring them in the first place? 114 men, at an average of $10,000 per hired man totals $1.14 million. That’s the amount the bosses took – from the 114 men we know of. There could be more workers who haven’t come to TWC2.

Some of the men told us that they had raised with MOM the matter of having had to pay for their jobs. Unfortunately, when they said that payments had been made in Bangladesh or, if made in Singapore, in cash, they were told that there was nothing MOM could do to help.

The bosses are thus richer by over a million dollars. Charging for jobs is regarded as a serious indicator of forced labour by the International Labour Organisation. Singapore too has made it illegal, but because the authorities have largely given up on enforcement, it’s become rampant in our migrant worker landscape.

Dependency ratio

All these workers seem to be hired on Process sector Work Permits. The Manpower Ministry’s rule is that Process sector companies must comply with a dependency ratio of five foreign workers for every citizen or Permanent Resident employee. As mentioned above, over 114 Bangladeshi workers had been registered with TWC2 from these three companies. This indicates that there should have been at least 23 other employees who were Singaporean or PR.

Yet, the Bangladeshi men do not mention knowing any Singaporean employee in the course of their work. It may be a good idea to check if these three companies had phantom Singaporean employees on their payroll just to be able to get this huge number of Work Permits, thereby enabling them to rake in a million dollars in recruitment money.

Centralised hiring platform

In a sense, the response of MOM officers – telling workers there is virtually nothing they can do – is true, if the case stays at the level of individual case management. Despite it being an offence on the books, the usual law and order process would require a convincing level of proof, and cash transactions generally do not live up this level. If the transaction takes place outside Singapore, then the question arises whether it is within Singapore jurisdiction at all.

However, the criminal justice approach is not the only way forward. There are solutions at the policy design level. As TWC2 has advocated for years, it is possible to have a totally different system for the hiring of low-wage workers, one that cuts out middlemen (unless it is a Singapore-licensed employment agency operating under Singapore law) and that ensures that prospective workers deal directly with employers, or at least with Singapore-licensed agents. We have advocated that such a system, on a digital platform, should be self-contained, i.e. all communication should only be through the platform and archived as evidence, and there should be enough masking to ensure that no requests for payment outside of the platform can be made or, if made, can be easily detected.

Consider this: many hotel booking sites, such as AirBnB, have such a system where it is generally not allowed and not possible for the hotel or host to ask for payment outside of the platform. We can have similar conditions and technical barriers on the hiring platform. Even if an employer finds a way around it, such a request would first have to be initiated through the platform (e.g. “talk to me privately on my WhatsApp number”) and, with a bit of artificial intelligence, easily detected. Moreover, the request, initiated through a Singapore-based platform, can be prosecuted under our laws since it would be within our jurisdiction. Of course, to be effective, it must be mandatory for employers to hire only through such a platform, but that’s easy once we have a rule that Work Permits can only be issued to employees hired through the platform.

The technology is available. The vast majority of migrant workers are capable of navigating online systems to find jobs – they already do, except that they’re using social media with all sorts of shady operators. What seems to be lacking is political will.

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