A Chinese court has sentenced five top members of an infamous Myanmar mafia to death as Beijing continues its crackdown on scam operations in South East Asia.
In all 21 Bai family members and associates were convicted of fraud, homicide, injury and other crimes, according to a state media report published on the court website.
The Bai family is among a select few mafia groups that rose to power in the 2000s, converting the impoverished town of Laukkaing into a lucrative center for casinos and red-light districts.
In recent years, they pivoted to scams in which thousands of trafficked workers, many of them Chinese, have been trapped, abused, and forced to defraud others in operations worth billions.
Mafia boss Bai Suocheng and his son Bai Yingcang were among the five sentenced to death by the Shenzhen Intermediate People's Court, alongside Yang Liqiang, Hu Xiaojiang, and Chen Guangyi.
Two other family members received suspended death sentences, five were given life imprisonment, while nine others received jail terms ranging from three to 20 years.
The Bai family, known to control their own militia, reportedly established 41 compounds to facilitate their scam activities and casinos, which led to the loss of over 29 billion Chinese yuan (approximately $4.1 billion) and resulted in six Chinese fatalities.
The harsh penalties reflect China’s aggressive strategy to eradicate widespread scam networks in South East Asia and send a strong message to other criminal entities.
In a separate case in September, eleven members of another prominent family, the Ming family, were sentenced to death as well.
The Bai family was historically aligned with Myanmar's military leader Min Aung Hlaing and was once considered the most powerful in both political and military spheres in Laukkaing, as highlighted by Bai Yingcang in a documentary aired on Chinese state media.
Witnesses have described horrific conditions in the scam centers, where abuse was rampant, including physical torture.
Along with the death sentences, Bai Yingcang was also convicted of conspiring to traffic and manufacture 11 tonnes of methamphetamine.
The fall of the Bai family has been swift, coinciding with changing political dynamics in Myanmar and escalating pressure from Beijing to tackle crime.
As part of this ongoing effort, Bai Suocheng was handed over to Chinese authorities from Myanmar in early 2024.
Law enforcement sources indicate that the crackdown serves as a warning to other crime syndicates that heinous crimes against Chinese citizens will not go unpunished.
