🔗 Share this article

A Chinese judicial body has condemned five leading figures of a well-known Burmese organized crime group to capital punishment as Beijing continues its campaign on scam activities in Southeast Asian region.

Altogether, 21 clan figures and partners were convicted of fraud, murder, injury and various crimes, stated a state media report posted on the court website.

The family is among a few of organized crime groups that rose to power in the 2000s and changed the poor backwater town of Laukkaing into a profitable center of casinos and nightlife areas.

In recent years they shifted to illegal operations in which thousands of smuggled individuals, many of them Chinese, are ensnared, harmed and compelled to scam victims in unlawful enterprises estimated at billions of dollars.

Specifics of the Judgment

Syndicate head Bai Suocheng and his son the younger Bai were among the several men sentenced to execution by the court in Shenzhen. Yang Liqiang, Hu Xiaojiang and Chen Guangyi were the remaining punished.

Two members of the Bai family syndicate were given suspended death sentences. Five were sentenced to life in prison, while nine others were given jail terms between three to 20 years.

The clan, who controlled their own armed group, set up forty-one facilities to house their online fraud schemes and betting establishments, government reported.

Scale of Illegal Schemes

Such unlawful enterprises included exceeding twenty-nine billion yuan (over four billion dollars; £3.1bn). They also caused the deaths of six from China individuals, the self-inflicted death of an individual and several assaults, reports announced.

The severe punishments delivered by the court are part of the Chinese effort to eliminate the large fraud networks in South East Asia - and deliver a firm warning to other criminal syndicates.

History of the Families

Such families rose to power in the 2000s with the help of Min Aung Hlaing - who currently heads Myanmar's regime. He had intended to prop up associates in the town after removing its former leader.

Within the clans, the this family were "the most powerful", Bai Yingcang before told state media.

During that period, our Bai family was the most powerful in each of the political and military circles," he said in a documentary about the clan, aired on national media in July.

Within that report, a worker at one of fraud facilities narrated the harm he had endured at the location: besides being beaten, he had his fingernails yanked out with tools and two of his fingers amputated with a blade.

Further Charges

The son is included in those who were given to death this week. He has additionally been separately convicted of planning to smuggle and manufacture a large quantity of illegal drugs, reports stated.

Decline of the Families

The families' fall came in 2023 as situations changed.

Over a long period Beijing has urged the Myanmar junta to limit fraudulent operations in Laukkaing.

In 2023, the law enforcement issued legal actions for the leading individuals of these groups.

The patriarch, the clan's patriarch, was included in the warlords who were extradited to China from Myanmar in recent months.

For what reason is the authorities putting such extensive work to target the groups?" a Chinese investigator stated in the July film.

This serves as a warning groups, no matter who you are, your base, when you carry out these terrible crimes affecting the citizens, you will pay the price."