You might have seen the recent discussion about a recruitment scheme calling itself the Alabuga Start Program. Several "influencers" in Botswana and South Africa promoted the scheme, suggesting that it offered great opportunities for well-paid employment working in the Tatarstan region of Russia. But it's not as simple as that. Several of these influencers have since apologized for what they said, now they know more about the scheme.
Firstly, and most importantly, there's nothing wrong with working overseas. In fact, it can be an amazing opportunity that every young person should consider if they get the chance.
But Alabuga is much more complicated. Firstly, it has some extremely worrying eligibility criteria. They only accept women aged 18 to 22. Isn't that extremely creepy? Would you be comfortable if your daughter, sister or friend was recruited by a company who only wanted such recruits? It gets worse. Much worse. A report by the Switzerland-based Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime reported that "recruits are not told their work will be in drone production before their arrival at the site". That's right, these workers apparently produce drones for the Russian military to use in their invasion of Ukraine. The report also reports that "workers at the site described exploitative, repressive working conditions". They conclude that Alabuga is not "human trafficking" but is "fraudulent exploitation" and that it's "an exploitative use of juvenile and migrant labour to support the Russian war economy".
There's been a lot of discussion about Alabuga in the media and it's raised an important concern about the role of influencers who promote schemes like this without sufficient research. Some of them even have a history of marketing scams such as Ecoplexus. We should all learn from this and think more carefully about who we allow to influence us.
The lesson? Alabuga isn't a scam or human trafficking, but it is one of the craziest things a young woman could ever consider.
Is this a scam?
Mr Richard help me check if Alacin Foundation In Birmingham, Michigan USA is authentic. Its a charitable foundation. I was video interviewed for an Administration position and I passed the interview. They sent a contract and they said they will courier the offer and a permit so I can apply for a visa. They asked for $500 and they were saying its for visa handling fees. I told them I don't have money and after that they said they will see how they help.
This IS a recruitment scam. I checked the web site of this "Alacin Foundation" and they claim to have operations in the USA but the two addresses they give aren't theirs. One is for a law firm and the other is an 8-bedroom house that's currently for sale. The domain they use, alacinfoundation.org, was only registered in May this year.
They also have a Facebook page, with just 23 followers (correction, now 24). So not exactly impressive.
There's also the unrealistic nature of the job offer. Why would a company in the USA recruit relatively junior staff from the other side of the planet?
But the biggest clue is the money they want from you. That's the "advance fee" that gives this scam its name. If you pay it, they'll keep inventing more fees and taxes they'll demand you pay, until you either run out of money or finally realise you've been scammed. I'm glad you realised in time!
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