China executes 11 people linked to Myanmar scam operation

Original article by Guardian staff and agencies

China on Thursday executed 11 people linked to Myanmar criminal gangs, including “key members” involved in scam operations, state media reported.

Scam compounds have flourished in Myanmar’s lawless borderlands, part of a multibillion-dollar illicit industry.

The centres are typically staffed by foreigners – including many Chinese – with many saying they were trafficked and forced to swindle people online.

Beijing has stepped up cooperation with Southeast Asian nations in recent years to crack down on the compounds, and thousands of people have been repatriated to China.

The 11 people 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.

Crimes of the executed included “intentional homicide, intentional injury, unlawful detention, fraud and casino establishment”, the report said.

The death sentences had been approved by the Supreme People’s Court in Beijing, which found that the evidence produced of crimes committed since 2015 was “conclusive and sufficient”, Xinhua said.

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”.

“The criminals’ close relatives were allowed to meet with them before the execution,” Xinhua added.

Scam centres, in which criminals run sophisticated online scams targeting people all over the world, have proliferated across south-east Asia in recent years, including in Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia.

They often use trafficked workers who are forced to conduct romance-based investment scams as part of a globalised industry that the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime estimates is worth $40bn annually.

In April, the UN warned that Chinese and south-east Asian gangs are raking in tens of billions of dollars a year through cyber scam centres.

This January authorities arrested Chen Zhi, an alleged scam king pin and head of the sanctioned Prince group, who has since been extradited to China.

*With Agence France-Presse