Scam kingpins who ran billion-dollar criminal empire sentenced to death in China

By Helen Regan, CNN

(CNN) — A court in China has sentenced 11 people to death for their roles in a billion-dollar family-run criminal empire built on online scam and gambling operations in a remote border region of Myanmar, and for the deaths of workers who tried to escape.

Eleven members and associates of the Ming crime family were sentenced to death on Monday by the Wenzhou Intermediate People’s Court in eastern China’s Zhejiang Province, according to a court statement.

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

The 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 their peak, the group had 10,000 people working to conduct scams and other crimes for them, Chinese broadcaster CCTV reported.

Kokang’s capital Laukkaing was at the heart of the country’s multi-billion-dollar scam industry, where trafficked workers were used to defraud strangers with sophisticated online schemes. Cash from the illicit activities had transformed the impoverished border town into a glittering casino city.

As the junta dragged its feet on shutting down the scam centers – a pressing security priority for Beijing – and after years of complaints by families of those trafficked to work in them on its southwestern border as well as growing international media reports, China launched a crackdown 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, his daughter Ming Julan, and granddaughter Ming Zhenzhen were also arrested.

Along with allied criminal groups, the syndicate’s crimes led to the deaths of 10 people who disobeyed the group’s management or tried to escape the compounds, according to the Chinese court’s statement.

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 cyber fraud park under armed guard after being tipped off that police were planning a raid of the compound.

Five other defendants were given suspended death sentences for two years, and 12 others were handed prison terms of between five and 24 years, the court statement said.

Since 2015, the Ming family used its influence in the Kokang region to develop a number of compounds and recruit “financial backers” and armed protection to build a network of telecommunications fraud, casinos, drug trafficking and organized prostitution, the court said in its statement.

More than $43 billion is lost to scams in Southeast Asia by regional crime groups 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. But the criminal syndicates and the armed groups hosting them have exploited four years of devastating civil war to expand their business.

The Chinese crackdown that led to the arrest of the Ming family and others in Kokang came after a coordinated rebel offensive against the Myanmar military in October 2023.

China had been publicly pushing the junta to crack down on cross-border crime targeting Chinese nationals. The rebels also cited the need to take out the massive scam operations as justification for their offensive – which analysts say China likely greenlit.

They eventually forced the military and its allies from Laukkaing.

Chinese authorities say more than 53,000 Chinese “suspects” – including trafficked victims – have been sent back to China from scam compounds in northern Myanmar.

Highly publicized crackdowns against Myanmar’s scam centers have also taken place in further south in the country, following pressure from Chinese and Thai authorities.

But experts and analysts previously told CNN the cyber fraud industry is rapidly expanding through illicit online marketplaces, with syndicates adopting cryptocurrency and investing in cutting-edge technological developments in artificial intelligence to move money more quickly, and make their scams more effective.

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CNN’s Kloe Zheng contributed reporting.