People traded as commodities, iron cages used for punishment, severed fingers and even human sacrifice.
These grisly details, revealed during interrogations of some of Asia’s most notorious criminal magnates, expose the horror of life in the many scam factories that dot Myanmar’s rugged and lawless border with China.
The suspects were alleged members of powerful crime families whose political connections, wealth and thousand-strong private armies allowed them to build multibillion-dollar empires on illegal gambling, telecoms and internet fraud, drug production, prostitution, and other illicit activities with impunity.
Now behind bars in Chinese prisons, more than a dozen on death row, their confessions have been beamed through TV screens across China and their alleged crimes detailed in lengthy investigations in Chinese state media.
“Should I have had any feelings?” asked one suspect, during police questioning of his alleged killing of a man in a sacrificial murder.
“Wasn’t that a living person, a real human being?” asked the officer, in video aired by Chinese state broadcaster CCTV in October.
Wearing a blue prison uniform, his hands shackled to a table, the man said: “I felt nothing.”
The man was Chen Dawei, heir apparent of the Wei family according to Chinese prosecutors, one of multiple mafia-like crime syndicates which until recently operated in Laukkaing, a town in Myanmar’s northeastern Kokang region, just a few miles from China. Chen, Chinese police allege, shot a man dead in a ceremony to demonstrate his commitment to a business partner.
The victim, they said, was picked at random by Chen’s associates.
China’s investigations detail a cruel world of money, power and control.
“Fire all the bullets,” Chen had told his cronies after allegedly ordering them to execute the henchman of a rival financial backer he’d had a dispute with. Chinese police said in one documentary that they found the man’s remains bound in iron chains and thick ropes, with seven bullet holes in the skull.
CNN couldn’t verify the reports or whether the confessions were given under duress. China has a record of scripted or forced confessions and televising them to spread domestic propaganda.
But Laukkaing’s role in the global scam trade has been widely documented by analysts, academics, reporters and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.
Chen’s publicized confession was part of a concerted push by Chinese authorities last year to show its citizens that it is dismantling the scamming networks that have proliferated in the anarchic legal vacuums along Myanmar’s borders, ensnaring thousands of Chinese nationals into their operations and stealing billions of dollars from people around the world, including the United States.
Dozens of alleged cybercrime bosses and warlords have been extradited to China and prosecuted, some handed severe punishments, and thousands of other smaller players arrested.
But the story behind the rise and eventual downfall of the Kokang crime families is much more complicated and sinister.
It’s a tale of betrayal, revenge, and the shifting political sands in a country permeated by civil war, instability and organized crime.
For many impoverished farmers in Myanmar’s mountainous Shan state, growing opium poppies has long been a lifeline.
Far from the national power centers of Yangon, Mandalay or the military-built capital Naypyidaw, the region is part of the frontierland between Myanmar, Laos and Thailand known as the Golden Triangle, which has for decades been a haven for drug production, illegal gambling, and the trafficking of narcotics, wildlife and humans.
Wedged between the Salween River to the west and China’s Yunnan province to the east is the autonomous region of Kokang, where most of the local people are ethnic Kokang – Mandarin-speaking Han Chinese.
Since the country’s independence from Britain in 1948, Chinese nationalists, Burmese communists, Kokang warlords, ethnic rebel militias and military juntas have struggled for influence and control over the territory, with drug production and, more recently, gambling and telecoms scams, defining Kokang’s economy.
It’s in this heady mix of lawlessness that a handful of powerful clans – known as the “four families” of Kokang – built their empires, transforming the sleepy market town of Laukkaing into a glittering casino city at the heart of the global scam industry.
Between them, the Bais, the Lius, the Weis, and later the Mings, built and operated more than 100 industrial parks – huge scam compounds where thousands of people, mainly Chinese, were often lured or trafficked, to work defrauding strangers with sophisticated online schemes, according to Chinese prosecutors, Myanmar officials and analysts who study organized crime.
Kokang was “the extreme wild west,” said Jason Tower, senior expert, Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime. “A massive cluster of casinos on the China border that are largely focused on bringing in Chinese gamblers. I mean, that is something that should have been a major red flag.”
The global scam industry, much of it centered in Southeast Asia, is estimated to be worth between $50 billion and $70 billion, and last year alone conned victims in the United States out of at least $10 billion dollars.
Torture, beatings and selling off workers were commonplace, Chinese state media reported, and each family used their own private militias to keep employees in check.
Disobedient workers were forced into iron cages or small, dark rooms where they were beaten or kept without food or water until they complied – a method of punishment used by several of the Kokang clans, according to the Chinese investigations.
“In the dark room, seven or eight people beat me together. They used PVC pipes and clubs, they even pulled out my fingernails with pliers. Then they chopped off two of my fingers with a kitchen knife,” a survivor of one of the Bai scam compounds, named only as Liao, told CCTV.
Another survivor, surnamed Zhu, said they were initially persuaded to carry luxury watches over the border to make some cash. “Once I got to the border, I was directly captured and sold. He said if I couldn’t deliver results, he’d sell me off, or bury me alive,” they said.
Chinese investigators also found dozens of women forced into prostitution in the compounds. The women had had their documents and phones confiscated and were locked in rooms guarded by armed men until they could work off an arbitrary debt.
CNN cannot independently confirm the examples broadcast by Chinese media, but the descriptions of abuse match accounts given by survivors rescued from other scam compounds in Myanmar, to CNN.
While thousands of their workers lived in terror, the families built a life of luxury, throwing lavish birthday parties and banquets attended by influential members of Myanmar’s military and government. They splashed their cash on dozens of luxury cars and watches, helicopters, mansions, and expensive international real estate, Chinese investigations alleged.
They believed they were untouchable. And for a while, they were.
But their criminal hubs had become too big, too quickly, and their alleged crimes – which included the reported killing of multiple Chinese citizens who tried to escape from a Kokang compound – grew too blatant for the global power on their doorstep to ignore any longer.
In 2023, China finally stepped in.
But before that final blow, let’s rewind several years to 2009. Back then, Kokang was ruled by a communist warlord (or ethnic revolutionary, depending on who you speak to) known as the “King of Kokang.”
Peng Jiasheng had spent much of the 1960s, ‘70s and ‘80s fighting the Myanmar military as a commander with Kokang and communist rebels, and was reportedly deep in the drugs trade.
He owed his fiefdom to a 1989 truce under which Peng’s ethnic armed group the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) and the military, which ruled Myanmar at the time, agreed to stop fighting.
Peng later claimed to have moved away from the opium trade and into the business of casinos – attracting customers from across the border in China, where gambling is illegal.
But in 2009, the ceasefire broke down when Peng refused to bring his armed group under central control. The military moved into Kokang, routed the MNDAA’s fighters, and Peng fled.
The success of that operation helped make the name of one of Myanmar’s most notorious generals – Min Aung Hlaing. Twelve years later, as commander in chief of the powerful military, he would order the 2021 coup that has plunged the country into a civil war that still rages today.
At the time of the Kokang operation, Bai Suocheng – the Bai family patriarch – was a deputy in the MNDAA and had cut a deal with the military to oust Peng. Kokang was later renamed as a self-administered zone, with Bai installed as chairman.
Three other MNDAA cadres joined Bai in the mutiny. Their respective networks became known as the “four families” of Kokang, dominating the region’s economy and political landscape.
“This was the most serious form of betrayal,” said Tower. Peng would not forget it.
Bai, his family and associates had companies in hotels, real estate and, of course, casinos backed by a 2,000-strong private army, according to Chinese state media. His son, Bai Yingneng, was a key representative of the military’s proxy political party – which is currently contesting national elections, despite the ongoing civil war – and was the party chair for Kokang.
The other clans, headed by Wei Chaoren, Liu Zhengxiang and Liu Guoxi, controlled networks of casinos, developed major industrial and real-estate projects, and were involved in the mining and minerals business. They built up the Kokang Border Guard Force, a paramilitary unit directed by the Myanmar military. Their family members and associates had seats in the Shan state parliament.
Their conglomerates did business all over the country and even overseas, protected by their military and government positions. They invested in state-backed projects, and money from the casinos and the scams was then funnelled back into Myanmar’s economy.
“Wei controlled the military power. Liu controlled all the finances. The Bais were playing more of that political role,” said Tower. Ming Xuechang, another clan leader who came up later, “was responsible for the police up in Kokang.”
“In terms of overall strength in Kokang, (our Bai family) is definitely number one,” Bai Yingcang, another of Bai Suocheng’s sons, said in a televised police interview broadcast on CCTV.
“No matter how wealthy the Liu family is or how powerful the Wei family may be, everyone recognizes us as the leaders. In both political and military circles, our family holds the most influence.”
The families’ cooperation also extended to local Chinese officials across the border, who worked to develop economic zones and cross-border trade fairs, analysts say, all while Kokang was becoming a haven of unregulated casinos and criminality.
After the Covid-19 pandemic, online scam operations became their cash cow. And it was win-win for the military, which was in desperate need of cash to fund its vicious civil war after seizing power in the coup of 2021, which removed the democratically elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi.
Meanwhile, China had for years played a careful game of backing Myanmar’s military regimes – lending Min Aung Hlaing much-needed economic, military and diplomatic support, while also maintaining close ties to the powerful rebel militias along its borders.
But Beijing would soon be forced to wade into the murky conflict.
Peng, the dethroned King of Kokang, had always wanted to reclaim Laukkaing.
And the coup, coupled with China’s increasing frustration with the military junta’s failure to crack down on the cross-border criminal activity, provided the perfect opportunity for the ailing warlord, who was approaching his tenth decade.
Now under the reins of his son, Peng Daxun, the MNDAA had formed alliances with two other powerful ethnic armed groups. And in October, 2023, the so-called Three Brotherhood Alliance launched an offensive to boot the military from Myanmar’s northeast.
“Operation 1027” captured strategic border towns and military outposts, and severed vital transport routes for cross-border trade with China. In January 2024 the MNDAA retook Laukkaing, and Peng Jr. declared Kokang liberated. Peng Sr. did not live to see the final stand, having died in 2022.
Announcing the offensive, the alliance pledged to not only overthrow the military, but also “eradicate telecom fraud, scam dens and their patrons nationwide.” Following the capture of Laukkaing and other areas of the Kokang region thousands of trafficked victims were sent back to China, along with suspected ringleaders, Chinese authorities said at the time.
Analysts said China likely green-lighted the operation after months of publicly pushing the junta to crack down on the cross-border crime.
For the Bais, the Lius, the Weis and the Mings, the jig was finally up.
At least 65 people connected to the families – including key members – were arrested, handed over to Chinese authorities, and prosecuted.
In September, 2025, 11 members of the Ming crime family – which operated one of the largest scam compounds in Kokang, the infamous Crouching Tiger Villa – were sentenced to death by a Chinese court. Among their crimes were fraud, intentional homicide, and intentional injury.
Family head Ming Xuechang, who had also served as member of a Myanmar state parliament, reportedly killed himself during his arrest. His son, Ming Guoping, who was a leader in the junta-aligned Kokang militia, his daughter and granddaughter were also arrested, and 17 others prosecuted, a court statement said.
Five members of the Bai crime group, including Bai Suocheng and his son Bai Yingcang, were sentenced to death in November. Some 21 members of the syndicate were prosecuted, with defendants handed prison terms of between three years and life.
Chinese prosecutors in October also brought charges against members of the Wei clan, including the leaders, brothers Wei Chaoren and Wei Huairen. Along with their nephew Chen Dawei, they face charges of telecoms fraud, intentional homicide and extortion among other crimes.
Members of the Liu gang face similar charges, including fraud, extortion, illegal detention, running casinos, organizing prostitution, and drug trafficking.
It wasn’t just the Kokang kingpins that China went after last year.
More than 57,000 Chinese nationals suspected of fraud have been arrested and repatriated to China from Myanmar since 2023, according to China’s Public Security Ministry.
The ministry in December issued a list of 100 wanted fugitive suspects linked to financing and operating telecoms and online scams, including other members of the “four families” – with a $28,300 reward for tips that lead to their arrest.
Documentaries and detailed investigations into the capture of some of the major and lesser players were broadcast as China attempted to alleviate fears from citizens at home and show it is being tough on scams.
But last year also saw China pivot to focus more on the scam centers along Myanmar’s border with Thailand.
The year began with the abduction of Chinese actor Wang Xiang, who had flown to Bangkok for what he expected to be a movie casting call in January. Instead, he was picked up at the airport and driven to a scam center in Myanmar’s Myawaddy, another notorious cyber-fraud hub, across the border from Thailand.
Public outrage over his kidnapping put pressure on China and Thailand to finally move against the scam compounds in southeastern Myanmar – many of which are also run by Chinese crime syndicates and junta-aligned militias.
In February, about 7,000 people were released from some of these Myawaddy compounds, and the Myanmar junta has blown up buildings inside major centers as part of highly publicized raids. And in November, Thailand extradited She Zhijiang, a Chinese national linked to the massive Shwe Koko gambling and fraud complex, to China to face charges.
But those released represent a fraction of people trapped and working in the centers, experts said, and the criminal networks are still operational.
The crackdowns have also gone international. US and UK authorities last year indicted Cambodian-Chinese tycoon Chen Zhi, who allegedly ran one of the largest transnational criminal organizations in Asia, and seized $15 billion in cryptocurrency plus other assets.
Even with major players now behind bars or stripped of their power, analysts say the crime syndicates behind the multibillion-dollar industry are rapidly expanding globally, and increasingly, to Western targets.
Beijing, meanwhile, is concerned that the prolonged instability and ongoing civil war could undermine China’s strategic assets in Myanmar, including the China-Myanmar pipeline, which many of its southwestern provinces rely on for access to oil and gas.
“One of China’s priorities in Myanmar – fighting crime is still important -–but the key priority is preventing the collapse of the military regime,” said Tower.
China, at least to the public, is projecting an image of strength.
“I still feel unsatisfied because there are still fugitives who have not been brought to justice,” Feng Haidong, deputy chief of the Criminal Investigation Detachment of the Shenzhen Municipal Public Security Bureau, said in one documentary aired on Chinese state TV.
“As long as you have committed the crime, you must come back to face the punishment. No matter how far you flee, we will never give up.”
CNN’s Joyce Jiang contributed reporting.
