A simple shoe purchase at Saks Fifth Avenue turned into a human-rights uproar after the buyer found an apparent desperate plea for help from a Chinese prison-factory worker in her shopping bag.
“HELP! HELP! HELP! We are ill-treated and work like slaves for 13 hours every day producing these bags in bulk in the prison factory,” said the note, handwritten on lined paper and tucked into the bottom of the bag.
“Thanks and sorry to bother you,” it added.
Stephanie Wilson, 28, an Australian who lives in West Harlem and works in human rights, said she found the note after buying Hunter rain boots at the tony store in 2012.
“I read the letter, and I just shook,” she told DNAinfo. “I could not believe what I was reading.”
The note was signed “Tohnain Emmanuel Njong” and accompanied by a small color picture of a man in an orange jacket.
The letter, which also included an e-mail address on the back, triggered a desperate hunt for the man.
Wilson sought the help of the DC-based Laogai Research Foundation, an advocacy group that fights human-rights abuses in Chinese prisons.
The group’s founder, Harry Wu, who spent 19 years in a Chinese prison factory, told The Post that he believes the letter is authentic and that he contacted the US Department of Homeland Security.
Homeland Security did not return a request for comment from The Post.
Wu said Njong took a big risk in writing the note.
“They can just do anything they want,” Wu said of the Chinese government. “But they have to care about international media and politics. If everybody speaks out, that can really impact the Chinese government.”
A man believed to be Njong was finally tracked down by DNAinfo through the e-mail on the note. In a phone interview, he confirmed to the web site unusual details about the note.
He said he is from Cameroon and had been teaching English in China when he was imprisoned on bogus charges.
He said he secretly wrote five notes — several in French and the rest in English — from prison and put them in the bags.
He said he was released from prison after three years, in December 2013, and is now in Dubai.
Neither Wilson nor Saks returned messages from The Post.