China has sentenced members of Myanmar’s notorious fraud mafia to death

A Chinese court has sentenced five senior members of Myanmar’s notorious mafia to death as Beijing continues its crackdown on fraud operations in Southeast Asia.

A total of 21 Bai family members and associates were convicted of fraud, murder, injury and other crimes, according to a state media report posted on the court’s website.

The family is among a handful of mobsters who rose to power in the 2000s and turned the poor backwater town of Laukaing into a lucrative center of casinos and red-light districts.

In recent years, they have targeted scams in which thousands of trafficked workers, many of them Chinese, are trapped, abused and forced to defraud others in criminal operations worth billions.

Mafia boss Bai Suochen and his son Bai Yingzang were among the five men sentenced to death by the Shenzhen Intermediate People’s Court. Yang Liqian, Hu Xiaojian and Chen Guangyi were the other three.

Two members of the Bai family mafia received suspended death sentences. Five were sentenced to life in prison, and nine others received sentences ranging from three to 20 years in prison.

The Bais, who controlled their own militia, set up 41 compounds to house their cyber activities and casinos, authorities said.

These criminal activities involved more than 29 billion Chinese yuan ($4.1 billion; £3.1 billion). They also resulted in the death of six Chinese nationals, the suicide of one and multiple injuries, state media reported.

The harsh penalties handed down by the court are part of China’s campaign to root out vast fraud networks in Southeast Asia – and send a stark warning to other crime syndicates.

In September a A Chinese court sentenced 11 members of the Ming family – another prominent Laukkaing clan – to death.

These families rose to power in the 2000s with the help of Min Aung Hlaing, who now leads Myanmar’s military government. He wanted to support the allies in Laukkaing after driving out the former warlord.

Among the clans, the Bais were “absolutely number one,” Bai Yingcang told state media earlier.

“At that time, our Bai family was the most powerful in both political and military circles,” he said in a documentary on the Bai family that aired on Chinese state media in July.

In the same documentary, an employee at one of their fraud centers recalls the abuse he suffered there: in addition to being beaten, his fingernails were pulled out with pliers and two of his fingers were cut off with a kitchen knife.

Bai Yingzang is among those on death row this week. He was also separately convicted of conspiracy to traffic and manufacture 11 tons of methamphetamine, state media reported.

The fall of the families came in 2023 when the political winds changed.

For years, Beijing has pressured the Myanmar junta to rein in fraudulent operations in Laukaing.

In 2023, Chinese police issued arrest warrants for the most prominent members of these families.

Bai Suochen, the patriarch of the Bai family, was among the warlords who were handed over to Beijing by Myanmar in early 2024.

“Why is the Chinese government putting so much effort into persecuting the four families?” a Chinese investigator said in a July documentary.

“This is to warn other people, no matter who you are, where you are, while committing such heinous crimes against the Chinese people, you will pay the price.”