China executes 11 gang members linked to Myanmar scam compounds – JURIST

The Supreme People’s Court of the People’s Republic of China announced a group execution Thursday that brought a landmark cross-border crime case to a close. The 11 ringleaders from the northern Myanmar Ming family criminal syndicate and its affiliated fraud groups have been executed.

The 11 people executed had committed grave crimes against Chinese citizens, including telecom fraud, intentional homicide, and illegal detention. These eleven criminals were the core leaders of 2 criminal groups in Northern Myanmar. The first was led by Ming Guoping, Ming Julan and Ming Zhenzhen. The Ming family leveraged its special influence and weapons background in Myanmar’s Kokang area to provide a “protective umbrella” for large-scale organized crime. The second group, led by Wu Hongming, directly organized telecom and online fraud operations and served as the principal financier.

The court found that the groups’ criminal activities fell into two categories:

Telecom and online fraud on a 10 billion Yuan scale since 2015: the groups established multiple crime hubs including Laojie and Shiyuanzi in Kokang, Myanmar and carried out organized, planned fraud targeting Chinese citizens.

Brutal violence: to maintain control over gang members and detained individuals, the groups carried out systematic violent crimes. The Ming family conspired with the leader of another telecom fraud syndicate, Wu Hongming, directly causing the deaths of and serious bodily harm to 14 Chinese citizens.

Recently, Beijing has intensified cooperation with Thailand and Myanmar to dismantle the scam compounds, resulting in thousands of suspects being repatriated to stand trial.

Scam compounds have been a major issue in Myanmar. Hundreds of thousands of people have been trafficked in Cambodia, Myanmar, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, the Philippines and Malaysia. The problem has been increasing since 2021 when the pandemic enabled criminals to take advantage of migrants stranded in the region without work. Interpol has previously expressed concern over the expansion of human trafficking in Southeast Asia.