China has executed 11 members of the Ming family, a notorious criminal organization that ran mafia-like fraud centers in Myanmar and killed workers who tried to escape, Chinese state media reported on Thursday.
The Myint family is one of the so-called “Four Families” in northern Myanmar, a criminal organization accused of running hundreds of complexes dealing in internet fraud, prostitution and drug production, whose members held key positions in local governments and militias aligned with Myanmar’s ruling military junta.
According to Xinhua news agency, the 11 people executed were found guilty of crimes including murder, illegal detention and fraud, and were sentenced to death in September.
Two of the defendants appealed and the case was transferred to China’s highest court, the Supreme People’s Court, which upheld the original verdict, Xinhua News Agency reported.
The crime family, led by Myint Shwe Chan, has long been linked to a notorious complex called Crouching Tiger Villa in Kokang, an autonomous region on Myanmar’s border with China. At its peak, the group had as many as 10,000 people and carried out fraud and other crimes, according to Chinese state broadcaster CCTV.
Kokang’s capital, Laukhine, is the epicenter of a multibillion-dollar fraud industry rooted in Myanmar’s lawless countryside, where trafficked workers are used to defraud strangers in sophisticated online schemes.
The Chinese government cracked down on these compounds in 2023 following years of complaints by relatives of employees of human trafficking fraud centers and increased international media attention.
In November of the same year, China issued arrest warrants for the family on charges of fraud, murder and human trafficking, with a bounty ranging from $14,000 to $70,000 for their arrest.
Chinese state media reported at the time that the family’s head, Myint Shwechan, who was also a member of the Myanmar state parliament, committed suicide while in custody.
Xinhua News Agency reported on Thursday that his son Ming Guoping and granddaughter Ming Zhenzhen, who were leaders of the junta-aligned Gugang Border Guard, were also executed. The report said he met with his next of kin before the execution.
According to Xinhua, the Ming family syndicate also colluded with another syndicate leader, Wu Hongming, who was also executed, to intentionally kill, injure, and illegally detain fraudsters, resulting in the deaths of 14 Chinese nationals.
In one incident in October 2023, members of the group allegedly opened fire on people at a fraudulent facility, killing four people. In a report on the shooting incident, Chinese state media CCTV said the group was transporting workers from a cyber-fraud facility under armed guard after receiving information that police were planning to raid the facility.
According to the U.S. Institute of Peace, established by the U.S. Congress, fraud rings in Southeast Asia steal more than $43 billion annually.
In Myanmar, fraud has long been masked by corruption and illegality that have permeated border areas. Criminal organizations and the armed groups that host them have also taken advantage of nearly five years of devastating civil war to expand their operations.
