China has executed 11 members of the Ming family, a notorious criminal syndicate accused of running large-scale scam operations in Myanmar and killing workers who attempted to escape, according to Chinese state media.
The executions were carried out after the group was sentenced to death in September for crimes including homicide, illegal detention and fraud, China’s Xinhua news agency reported on Thursday.
The Ming family was among the so-called “four families” of northern Myanmar, crime networks linked to hundreds of compounds involved in internet fraud, prostitution and drug production.
Members of the syndicate were also said to hold influential positions within local government structures and militia groups aligned with Myanmar’s military rulers.
Chinese state broadcaster CCTV said the gang operated from an infamous compound known as Crouching Tiger Villa in the Kokang region near the China-Myanmar border. At its peak, the network allegedly employed around 10,000 people, many of them trafficked, to carry out online scams and related crimes.
Two of those convicted appealed their sentences, but China’s Supreme People’s Court upheld the original rulings, Xinhua said.
The crackdown follows years of complaints from families of trafficked workers and increased international scrutiny of the scam industry in Myanmar’s border regions. In late 2023, China issued arrest warrants for Ming family members and offered rewards for their capture.
Xinhua reported that Ming Guoping, identified as a leader in a junta-aligned border force, and Ming Zhenzhen, his granddaughter, were among those executed. The report added that the convicts were allowed to meet relatives before the sentences were carried out.
Chinese authorities also accused the Ming family of conspiring with another crime figure, Wu Hongming, who was also executed, in a series of abuses against scam workers that reportedly led to the deaths of 14 Chinese citizens.
China’s foreign ministry said it would continue efforts to combat cross-border gambling and fraud networks, as concerns grow over the scale of cybercrime operations across Southeast Asia
