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AFP, BEIJING
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China has executed four leading members of Myanmar-based scam syndicates, a Chinese court said yesterday, the second such announcement in less than a week as Beijing ramps up a crackdown on cross-border telecom fraud.
Fraud compounds where scammers lure Internet users into fake romantic relationships and cryptocurrency investments have flourished across Southeast Asia, including in Cambodia and the lawless borderlands of Myanmar.
Initially largely targeting Chinese speakers, the criminal groups behind the compounds have expanded operations into multiple languages to steal billions of dollars from victims around the world.
Burmese police hand over five telecom and Internet fraud suspects to Chinese police at Yangon International Airport in Myanmar on Aug. 26, 2023.
Photo: Chinese embassy in Myanmar / Xinhua via AP
They used thousands of foreign workers — some willingly and some trafficked — to carry out the scams.
REPATRIATION
Beijing has stepped up cooperation with Southeast Asian governments, and thousands of people have been repatriated to face trial in China’s opaque justice system.
The latest announcement comes days after a court in Wenzhou said that it had executed 11 people linked to telecom scam operations with the “Ming family criminal group.”
The four people executed were linked to the “Bai family criminal group,” the Shenzhen Intermediate People’s Court said in a statement.
Their crimes included “fraud, intentional homicide, intentional injury, kidnapping, extortion … [and] forced prostitution,” among others.
The group ran fraud parks in northern Myanmar’s Kokang region, where their actions led to the deaths of six Chinese citizens and injuries to “many” others.
The four were sentenced to death in November last year.
