China has issued death sentences to five individuals linked to a violent transnational crime syndicate operating in Myanmar’s troubled Kokang region, state media reported on Tuesday.
The gang was part of a sprawling network of criminal enterprises behind massive online scam operations that have proliferated in Myanmar’s semi-lawless border zones.
These compounds—staffed largely by trafficked foreigners, many of them Chinese nationals—form the backbone of a multibillion-dollar cyberfraud industry targeting victims worldwide.
According to state news agency Xinhua, the group’s crimes directly led to the deaths of six Chinese citizens, the suicide of another, and injuries to multiple people. A court in Shenzhen, in southern China, convicted the defendants of a catalogue of serious offences.
The syndicate had constructed 41 criminal compounds in the Kokang area, where it engaged in activities including telecom fraud, running illegal gambling operations, homicide, forced prostitution, and smuggling people across borders, Xinhua reported.
In addition to the five death sentences, the court handed down two death sentences with two-year reprieves, a punishment that often results in life imprisonment. Five more defendants received life sentences, while nine others were given prison terms ranging from three to 20 years.
Beijing has intensified pressure on scam networks across Southeast Asia in recent months, coordinating with neighbouring governments as thousands of trafficked individuals have been repatriated from Myanmar.
In April, the United Nations warned that cyberfraud syndicates run by Chinese and Southeast Asian criminal groups are now generating tens of billions of dollars annually, with operations spreading as far as Africa, Europe, the Middle East, South America, and the Pacific Islands.
The UN estimates that hundreds of thousands of people are currently trapped in scam centres around the world.
The latest ruling follows a similar case in late September, when a Chinese court sentenced 16 members of a family-run Kokang gang to death, including five given death sentences with reprieves.
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