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.
When asked about the executions on Thursday, a spokesperson for China’s foreign ministry said Beijing would continue to intensify efforts to “eradicate the scourge of gambling and fraud.”
CNN’s Kloe Zheng contributed reporting.
