Fifty-two migrant workers have been forced to live in poverty after being duped out of 80,000 yuan for what they thought was a dream job.

Most of the workers borrowed the fee from relatives and friends in the hope it would lead to a well-paid job in Romania, but now the intermediate agency is refusing to pay their money back

Meng Fanxing, 47, is the eldest?among the batch of stranded migrant workers who applied to Romania. He lives in Ruigu village of the county.

Another cheated migrant worker Zhu Yu hoped to earn more money abroad to repair their old house after he came back, but now the family is much poorer than before. Zhu now works as a waiter at a restaurant in Dezhou, Shandong province now. His family is in heavy debt for the intermediate fee abroad.

As the lunar New Year is around the corner, some of them are afraid of staying at home because it is the time to pay back debt.

Gucheng county in Hebei province is nationally famous for exporting labor to other countries. Local farmers believe international labor work will improve their lives much faster than toiling on domestic construction sites.

The Gucheng County government promised to give each of them 50,000 yuan as compensation for the fraud. But except the white paper with the country government seal, they got nothing.

For the full story: Laborers vulnerable to rogue job agencies