China executes 11 linked to Myanmar scam operations: State media 

China has executed 11 people linked to online scam centres in Myanmar, according to state media, as Beijing toughens its crackdown on the illegal operations.

Those executed on Thursday were sentenced to death in September by a court in the eastern Chinese city of Wenzhou, Xinhua said, adding that the court also carried out the executions.

The crimes of those executed included “intentional homicide, intentional injury, unlawful detention, fraud and casino establishment”, Xinhua added.

Fraud compounds where scammers lure internet users into fake romantic relationships and cryptocurrency investments have flourished across Southeast Asia, including in Myanmar’s borderlands.

Largely targeting Chinese speakers at the outset, the criminal groups behind the compounds have expanded operations into multiple languages to steal from and defraud victims around the world.

Those conducting the scams are sometimes willing con artists, and other times trafficked foreign nationals forced to work.

In recent years, Beijing has stepped up cooperation with Thailand and Myanmar to crack down on the compounds, and thousands of people have been repatriated to face trial.

The death sentences for the 11 people executed were approved by the Supreme People’s Court in Beijing, which found that the evidence produced of crimes committed since 2015 was “conclusive and sufficient”, reported Xinhua.

Among the executed were members of the “Ming family criminal group”, whose activities had contributed to the deaths of 14 Chinese citizens and injuries to “many others”.

Fraud operations centred in Myanmar’s border regions have extracted billions of dollars from around the world through phone and internet scams.

Experts say most of the centres are run by Chinese-led crime syndicates working with Myanmar militias, who have been taking advantage of the country’s instability and ongoing war.

Myanmar’s military government has long been accused of turning a blind eye to the centres but has trumpeted a crackdown since February after being lobbied by key military backer China, experts say.

Some of its raids have been part of a propaganda effort, according to several monitors, choreographed to vent pressure from Beijing without badly denting profits that enrich the military government’s militia allies.

In October, the military arrested more than 2,000 people in a raid on KK Park, an infamous scam centre on the border with Thailand.

The September rulings that resulted in Thursday’s executions also included death sentences with two-year reprieves to five other individuals.

Another 23 suspects were given prison sentences ranging from five years to life.

In November, Chinese authorities sentenced five people to death for their involvement in scam operations in Myanmar’s Kokang region.

Their crimes had led to the deaths of six Chinese nationals, according to state media reports.

The United Nations estimates that as many as 120,000 people may be working in online scam centres in Myanmar.

Another 100,000 may be trapped in Cambodia, according to the UN, with thousands more in similar facilities across Southeast Asia.

Online scam operations have proliferated in Cambodia since the COVID-19 pandemic, when the global shutdown saw many Chinese-owned casinos and hotels in the country pivot to illicit operations.

Operating from industrial-scale scam centres, tens of thousands of workers perpetrate online romance scams known as “pig-butchering”, often targeting people in the West in a vastly lucrative industry responsible for the theft of tens of billions of dollars each year.

The UN Office on Drugs and Crime warned in April that the cyberscam industry was spreading across the world, including to South America, Africa, the Middle East, Europe and a number of Pacific Islands.

In October, the United States and United Kingdom announced sweeping sanctions against the Cambodia-based Prince Group network for running a chain of “scam centres” in Cambodia, Myanmar and across the region.