Chinese court tries Myanmar gang accused of scams, drugs, extortion and murder

A Chinese court has begun hearing charges against 23 members of a notorious Myanmar-based telecoms fraud gang accused of a range of crimes.

The suspects are associated with the Ming family gang and were charged with 11 crimes – including telecoms fraud, murder, intentional injury, illegal detention, extortion, running a gambling den, organising prostitution and drug trafficking – state broadcaster CCTV reported on Wednesday.

According to CCTV, prosecutors in Wenzhou in China’s eastern Zhejiang province alleged the Ming family “leveraged their influence and armed forces” to set up “industrial parks” and had colluded with financial backers on various crimes since 2015. As a result, 14 Chinese were killed and six wounded, and billions of yuan was lost to fraud.

They alleged the gang’s operations were centred in Kokang, in Myanmar’s northern Shan state, which shares a border with China’s southwestern Yunnan province.

Prosecutors said the gang established a network of industrial estates and compounds that housed thousands of scammers and used a range of tactics to target their victims, including fake investment schemes, phishing scams and extortion.

Prosecutors said there was evidence that in October 2023 Ming’s gang killed Chinese captives who tried to flee as they were being moved to another compound.

The Ming crime group was led by Ming Xuechang, a Chinese-Myanmar national who was a member of Myanmar’s Shan state legislature and a former member of the Kokang leadership committee. He died in an apparent suicide in November 2023 after being detained by Chinese police.

  

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