China has executed 11 members of a powerful mafia family that operated scam centres in Myanmar along the country’s north-eastern border, according to state media.
The Ming family members were sentenced in September after being convicted of a range of offences, including homicide, unlawful detention, fraud and running illegal gambling operations, by a court in China’s Zhejiang province.
The Mings were one of several clans that controlled the town of Laukkaing, transforming what had once been a poor, isolated settlement into a highly commercialised hub of casinos and red-light districts.
Their criminal empire collapsed in 2023, when ethnic militias seized Laukkaing during an escalation of fighting with Myanmar’s military and later handed the family members over to Chinese authorities.
The executions are widely seen as Beijing’s attempt to deter would-be scammers. However, scam operations have since shifted to Myanmar’s border with Thailand, as well as to Cambodia and Laos, where China has far less leverage.
The United Nations estimates that hundreds of thousands of people have been trafficked to operate online scams in Myanmar and elsewhere in South East Asia. Among them are thousands of Chinese nationals, while the victims—defrauded of billions of dollars—are also largely Chinese.
Beijing had grown increasingly frustrated with Myanmar’s military for failing to curb the scam industry, from which it was widely believed to be benefiting.
In late 2023, China quietly backed an offensive by an ethnic insurgent alliance in Shan State, which captured large areas of territory and overran Laukkaing, a strategic border town.
Who Are the Ming Family?
The 11 executed individuals are the first scam bosses based in Myanmar to be put to death by China.
They are unlikely to be the last. In November, five members of the Bai family were also sentenced to death, while trials involving defendants from the Wei and Liu families are still ongoing.
The Ming family’s trial was conducted behind closed doors, although more than 160 people, including relatives of victims, were permitted to attend their sentencing hearing last year.
According to China’s highest court, the Ming syndicate generated more than 10bn yuan ($1.4bn; £1bn) from scam operations and gambling businesses between 2015 and 2023.
The court said their activities resulted in the deaths of 14 Chinese citizens and injuries to many others, and it rejected their appeals in November.
More than 20 additional members of the Ming family received prison sentences in September, ranging from five years to life. The family’s patriarch, Ming Xuechang, died by suicide in 2023 while attempting to evade arrest, Myanmar’s military said at the time.
Confessions from arrested members were later broadcast in state-run documentaries, highlighting the Chinese authorities’ determination to dismantle scam networks.
The Mings were among a small group of powerful, mafia-like families that rose to prominence in Laukkaing in the early 2000s, after the town’s former warlord was removed in a military operation led by Min Aung Hlaing, who later became head of Myanmar’s military government following the 2021 coup.
Ming Xuechang oversaw one of Laukkaing’s most notorious scam compounds, known as Crouching Tiger Villa.
While gambling and prostitution were initially the main sources of income, the families later expanded into online fraud, using workers who were often kidnapped and forced to carry out scams.
Inside the sprawling, heavily guarded compounds, violence was routine, according to testimonies from survivors, with beatings and torture described as commonplace.
