China has executed 11 people identified as ringleaders of a vast, Myanmar-based telecommunications fraud network that swindled victims out of billions and relied on violence and coercion to keep its scam operations running.
According to Chinese state news agency Xinhua, the group was central to a cross-border criminal enterprise built around industrial-scale phone and online scams, including so-called “pig-butchering” schemes that use fake romance and investment pitches to extract large sums of money from victims over time.
The scammers were sentenced to death by a court in China’s Zhejiang province in September 2025 and the executions were later carried out after China’s Supreme People’s Court (SPC) upheld the verdicts.
Xinhua said the lethal sentences covered multiple offences, including “intentional homicide, intentional injury, illegal detention, fraud, and operating gambling establishments”, but highlighted the defendants’ leading role in running telecom scam hubs in Myanmar.
“The top court confirmed that since 2015, these criminals had established multiple operational bases in Myanmar to engage in telecom fraud, operate illegal gambling dens, and commit other crimes,” Xinhua reported.
According to SPC, the gangs’ fraud and gambling operations generated $2.07 billion (10 billion yuan) before they were dismantled.
The scam compounds were not only centres of online deception but also sites of brutal control, authorities said.
“The gangs also intentionally murdered, assaulted, and illegally detained people involved in fraud, resulting in the deaths of 14 Chinese citizens and causing injuries to others,” Xinhua reported.
Crackdown on border state scam mafia
Several of those executed were reported members of the Ming family, described by Chinese media as a mafia-like organisation that operated multiple scam centres in Myanmar’s border regions.
These facilities allegedly relied on trafficked and coerced workers who were forced to run online and phone scams targeting both Chinese and international victims.
The scammers front court. Photo: Supplied
Workers were reportedly threatened with violence or death if they tried to escape, and made to carry out long-running frauds designed to “fatten” victims before stealing their savings.
Chinese state broadcaster CCTV linked the Ming group to a major scam compound known as the “Crouching Tiger Villa”, which it said employed about 10,000 people at the height of its operations, many engaged in telecom and online fraud.
The executions form part of a sweeping crackdown on cross-border scam syndicates operating out of Myanmar.
Forces unite
Chinese and Myanmar law enforcement have worked together on the campaign, which CCTV said has resulted in more than 57,000 arrests of Chinese nationals suspected of involvement in fraud.
The scale of the scam industry in Myanmar has drawn international concern. In 2023, the United Nations estimated that at least 120,000 people may have been trapped in forced working situations in Myanmar scam compounds, including in illegal gambling and cryptocurrency fraud operations.
Though the Ming family trials were held behind closed doors, Xinhua said two defendants sought to challenge their sentences.
Their appeals were rejected in November 2025 by a Zhejiang court, which upheld its original judgment and submitted the case to the SPC for review.
The top court later approved the death sentences.
“The criminals’ close relatives were allowed to meet with them before the execution,” Xinhua reported.
More than 20 other Ming family members received prison sentences ranging from five years to life.
Chinese media described those executed as the first organisers of major Myanmar-based telecom scam operations to be put to death by China.
China is believed to be the world’s leading executioner.
Human rights organisation Amnesty International says the true number of executions is unknown due to state secrecy, but estimates it runs into the thousands each year.
