State media in China reported that 11 members of the Ming family, a notorious mafia clan that ran large-scale scam centres in Myanmar, have been executed following convictions for crimes including homicide, illegal detention, fraud and operating gambling dens.
China’s decision to tacitly support an ethnic insurgent alliance in Myanmar’s Shan State has culminated in the arrest, prosecution and execution of members of powerful crime families who once controlled vast scam operations along the China–Myanmar border.
State media in China reported that 11 members of the Ming family, a notorious mafia clan that ran large-scale scam centres in Myanmar, have been executed following convictions for crimes including homicide, illegal detention, fraud and operating gambling dens.
The sentences were handed down by a court in China’s Zhejiang province in September.
The executions followed a dramatic collapse of the Ming family’s criminal empire in 2023, after ethnic militias seized Laukkaing, a key border town in northern Myanmar, the BBC reports.
The militias had taken control of the area during an escalation in fighting with Myanmar’s army, a campaign that Beijing was reported to have tacitly supported after growing frustration with the military’s failure to shut down scam operations targeting Chinese citizens.
Laukkaing had been transformed by the Ming family and other clans from a poor border town into a lucrative hub of casinos, red-light districts and online scam centres. Their activities generated more than 10bn yuan ($1.4bn; £1bn) between 2015 and 2023, according to China’s highest court.
When the ethnic alliance overran the town, Ming family members and associates were detained and handed over to Chinese authorities. The court later said the group’s crimes led to the deaths of 14 Chinese citizens and injuries to many others. Appeals were rejected in November.
The eleven executions mark the first time China has carried out death sentences against Myanmar-based scam bosses, but officials have made clear the crackdown is far from over.
Five members of the Bai family were sentenced to death in November, while trials involving defendants from the Wei and Liu families remain ongoing.
More than 20 other members of the Ming family received prison sentences ranging from five years to life. Ming Xuechang, the family patriarch, died in 2023 while attempting to evade detention, according to Myanmar’s military.
The Ming family’s trial was held behind closed doors, though more than 160 people, including victims’ families, were allowed to attend sentencing proceedings. Confessions from those arrested were later broadcast in state media documentaries, underscoring Beijing’s determination to dismantle scam networks.
China’s intervention came amid estimates by the United Nations that hundreds of thousands of people have been trafficked to work in scam centres across South East Asia, many of them Chinese nationals.
While Beijing’s actions have disrupted operations in northern Myanmar, analysts note that the business has since shifted toward Thailand’s border regions, Cambodia and Laos, where China’s influence is more limited.