China has executed 11 members of a powerful Myanmar-based crime clan accused of killing 14 Chinese nationals and running vast online scam and gambling operations that generated more than US $1 billion, authorities said on Thursday.

The executions, confirmed by the Wenzhou Intermediate People’s Court, mark the most severe punishment yet in Beijing’s escalating campaign against transnational fraud networks.

Executions follow rejected appeals

The court announced that the sentences were carried out early Thursday, months after the group was condemned to death in September.

Those executed included alleged ringleaders Ming Guoping and Ming Zhenzhen, along with senior operatives Zhou Weichang, Wu Hongming and Luao Jianzhang.

All 11 had their appeals dismissed in November by China’s highest court, which upheld the original verdicts on charges including homicide, illegal detention, large-scale fraud and operating illicit gambling dens.

The family members were apprehended in late 2023 after Beijing intensified pressure on authorities in Myanmar’s border regions to dismantle sprawling scam enclaves that have proliferated across Southeast Asia.

A regional hub for industrial-scale scams

Online scam compounds – often fortified and run by criminal networks – have become a lucrative industry in Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos. Many are staffed with trafficked workers coerced into carrying out global fraud schemes that have swindled victims out of billions.

The UN estimates that hundreds of thousands of people have been forced into these cyber-scam operations, including thousands of Chinese nationals.

Governments in the region have faced growing scrutiny from China, the United States and other countries demanding tougher action.

Beijing’s latest move is widely viewed as a warning shot to syndicates still operating beyond China’s reach, especially those relocating their networks deeper into Myanmar or shifting to neighbouring states where Chinese influence is weaker.

Beijing’s backing of ethnic militias shifted the battlefield

The Ming clan’s downfall followed a dramatic shift in the conflict in northern Myanmar in late 2023, when an ethnic armed alliance seized large stretches of territory from the military, including the border town of Laukkaing.

Long notorious for casinos, brothels and scam compounds, Laukkaing was controlled for years by a handful of powerful families. When insurgents overran the town, they handed several alleged scam bosses – including the Ming family – to Chinese authorities.

The Chinese government had become increasingly frustrated with Myanmar’s military, which was widely believed to be benefitting from the scam economy and had resisted Beijing’s calls to rein it in.

Who are the Ming family?

The Mings were among the most influential criminal clans to emerge in Laukkaing in the early 2000s, rising after a local warlord was toppled in a military campaign led by Min Aung Hlaing, now Myanmar’s junta chief.

Led by patriarch Ming Xuechang, who killed himself in 2023 while evading arrest, the family built a multimillion-dollar empire centred at their infamous compound, Crouching Tiger Villa.

While gambling and prostitution initially drove their profits, they later expanded into online fraud on an industrial scale. Their operations, according to Chinese authorities, brought in more than 10 billion yuan (US$1.4 billion) between 2015 and 2023.

Within their heavily guarded compounds, violence was routine. Former captives have described beatings, torture and strict confinement under threat of death.

More than 20 other Ming family members were sentenced in September to terms ranging from five years to life imprisonment. 

Deterrent message as crackdown continues

China’s top court said the Ming syndicate’s crimes led to the deaths of 14 Chinese nationals and left many more injured. State media aired televised confessions and investigative documentaries in recent months, underscoring Beijing’s determination to eradicate the scam industry.

The executions are unlikely to be the last. Five members of the Bai family, another influential clan, were also sentenced to death late last year, and trials involving alleged leaders of the Wei and Liu families are ongoing.

(With inputs from AP)