China has executed 11 members of a notorious mafia family that ran scam centres in Myanmar along its north-eastern border, state media report.
The Ming family members were sentenced in September for various crimes including homicide, illegal detention, fraud and operating gambling dens by a court in China's Zhejiang province.
The Mings were one of many clans that ran the town of Laukkaing, transforming an impoverished backwater town into a flashy hub of casinos and red-light districts.
Their scam empire came crashing down in 2023, when they were detained and handed over to China by ethnic militias that had taken control of Laukkaing during an escalation in their conflict with Myanmar's army.
With these executions, Beijing is sending a message of deterrence to would-be scammers. But the business has now moved to Myanmar's border with Thailand, and to Cambodia and Laos, where China has much less influence.
Frustrated by the Myanmar military's refusal to stop the scam business, from which it was almost certainly profiting, Beijing tacitly backed an offensive by an ethnic insurgent alliance in Shan State in late 2023. The alliance captured significant territory from the military and overran Laukkaing, a key border town.
The eleven members of the Ming family are the first of the Myanmar scam bosses to be executed by China. But they will not be the last—five members of the Bai family were also sentenced to death in November, and trials for two other families are ongoing.
From 2015 to 2023, the Ming family's operations reportedly brought in more than 10 billion yuan ($1.4 billion; £1 billion), leading to the deaths of 14 Chinese citizens. Hundreds of thousands of people have been trafficked to run online scams in Myanmar and elsewhere in Southeast Asia, with victims primarily from China.
