China Executes 11 Crime Bosses Behind Myanmar Scam Slave Empire

China Executes 11 Crime Bosses Behind Myanmar Scam Slave Empire

China executes 11 members of gang who ran billion-dollar criminal empire in Myanmar China has executed 11 members of the notorious Ming family criminal gang, who ran mafia-like scam centers in Myanmar and killed workers who tried to escape, Chinese state media reported on Thursday.

The Ming family was one of the so-called four families of northern Myanmar — crime syndicates accused of running hundreds of compounds dealing in internet fraud, prostitution and drug production, and whose members held prominent positions in the local government and militia aligned with Myanmar’s ruling junta.

The 11 people executed were sentenced to death in September after being found guilty of crimes including homicide, illegal detention, and fraud, Xinhua news agency reported. Two of the defendants appealed and the case was elevated to the Supreme People’s Court, China’s highest court, which upheld the original verdict, according to Xinhua. The crime family, headed by Ming Xuechang, had long been tied to an infamous compound called Crouching Tiger Villa in Kokang, an autonomous region on Myanmar’s border with China.

At its peak, the group had 10,000 people working to conduct scams and other crimes, according to Chinese state broadcaster CCTV. Kokang’s capital Laukkaing was at the heart of a multibillion-dollar scam industry that took root in lawless pockets of Myanmar, where trafficked workers were used to defraud strangers with sophisticated online schemes. After years of complaints by relatives of trafficked scam center workers and growing international media attention, Beijing cracked down on the compounds in 2023. That November,

China issued arrest warrants for members of the family, accusing them of fraud, murder and trafficking, and posted rewards of between $14,000 and $70,000 for their capture. Family head Ming Xuechang, who had also served as member of a Myanmar state parliament, later killed himself while in custody, Chinese state media reported at the time. His son Ming Guoping, who was a leader in the junta-aligned Kokang Border Guard Force, and his granddaughter Ming Zhenzhen were among those executed, Xinhua reported on Thursday. Before they were executed, they met with close relatives, the report said.

The Ming family syndicate also conspired with the leader of another syndicate, Wu Hongming, who was also executed, to intentionally kill, injure and illegally detain scam workers, resulting in the deaths of 14 Chinese citizens, according to Xinhua.

In one incident in October 2023, four people were killed when members of the group allegedly opened fire on people at a scam compound. In a report into the shooting, Chinese state media CCTV reported the group were transferring workers from the cyberfraud park under armed guard after being tipped off that police were planning a raid of the compound. Scamming gangs in Southeast Asia steal more than $43 billion a year, according to the US Congress-founded United States Institute of Peace. In Myanmar, scam compounds have been shielded by corruption and lawlessness that has long saturated the country’s border regions.

The criminal syndicates and the armed groups hosting them have also exploited almost five years of devastating civil war to expand their business.

Key Takeaways

• China executed 11 members of the Ming family, a powerful crime syndicate that ran billion-dollar scam compounds in northern Myanmar.

• The gang operated cyber-fraud centers using trafficked workers, killing those who tried to escape; at least 14 Chinese citizens died.

• The syndicate controlled up to 10,000 workers and was embedded in local government and junta-aligned militias in Myanmar’s lawless border regions.

• Beijing launched a major crackdown in 2023 after public outrage, issuing bounties and arrest warrants; the gang’s leader later died by suicide in custody.

• Southeast Asian scam networks steal an estimated $43bn a year, thriving amid corruption and Myanmar’s civil war chaos.

SOURCE: CNN