China’s judiciary has delivered one of its harshest verdicts yet against cross-border crime, sentencing 16 members of a notorious Myanmar-based crime syndicate to death for their role in operating vast cyber scam compounds that exploited tens of thousands of victims and left a trail of killings, injuries, and shattered lives. The case, centered on the powerful Ming family, underscores not only the immense financial damage wrought by such criminal enterprises but also the growing security threat they pose along China’s southern border.

The Wenzhou People’s Intermediate Court in Zhejiang Province announced on Monday that 11 members of the Ming syndicate were sentenced to immediate execution, while five others received suspended death sentences. An additional 23 members of the clan were handed prison terms ranging from 24 years to life imprisonment. The ruling follows an investigation that tied the Ming family’s operations to at least $1.4 billion in financial losses and the confirmed deaths of 16 people, many of them Chinese nationals attempting to flee forced labor inside scam compounds.

At the heart of the case is the Ming family, long considered one of the most powerful ethnic Chinese clans in the Kokang region of Myanmar’s Shan State. Kokang, a semi-autonomous border enclave historically tied to China, has long been fertile ground for illicit businesses, from drug trafficking and gambling to militias that switch allegiances in Myanmar’s decades-long civil wars.

According to the court’s findings, the Mings transformed Kokang into a hub for cybercrime over the last decade. The family operated “scam parks” – fortified compounds where trafficked workers were forced to run online fraud schemes targeting victims across China and beyond. Survivors have recounted harrowing experiences........

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