Global Black Voices: News from around the World
- The Shenzhen Intermediate People’s Court convicted 21 Bai syndicate members on charges including fraud, homicide, and intentional injury.
- Five senior figures—Bai Suocheng, Bai Yingcang, Yang Liqiang, Hu Xiaojiang, and Chen Guangyi—were sentenced to death.
- The network operated 41 guarded compounds, earning over 29 billion yuan through scams that left victims dead and injured.
- Bai clan ran casinos, brothels, then large-scale cyberfraud, trafficking and brutalizing workers to force online scams.
- The verdict is part of China’s broader crackdown on transnational crime, following extraditions from Myanmar and similar death sentences for other clans.
A Chinese court has sentenced five senior members of Myanmar’s notorious Bai family mafia to death, intensifying Beijing’s sweeping campaign against cross-border scam operations that have trapped thousands of victims across Southeast Asia.
The Shenzhen Intermediate People’s Court convicted 21 people linked to the Bai crime syndicate on charges including fraud, homicide, intentional injury, and other serious offenses, according to a court statement published on state media.
Those condemned include Bai Suocheng, the family patriarch and former warlord of Laukkaing in Myanmar’s Shan State, and his son Bai Yingcang. The other three sentenced to death were Yang Liqiang, Hu Xiaojiang, and Chen Guangyi.
Two additional members received suspended death sentences, five were given life imprisonment, and nine others were handed prison terms ranging from three to twenty years.
Chinese authorities said the Bai network ran 41 heavily guarded compounds used for online scams and casino operations, amassing more than 29 billion yuan ($4.1 billion) through crimes that left six Chinese citizens dead and many others injured.
The Bai family was one of several criminal clans that turned Laukkaing, a remote border town in northern Myanmar, into a hub for gambling and cybercrime beginning in the 2000s. Initially running casinos and brothels, the group shifted toward cyberfraud schemes in recent years, luring and imprisoning trafficked workers, many of them Chinese, and forcing them to defraud victims online.
Their influence extended deep into local politics and militia networks. Bai Yingcang, in a state media documentary aired in July, boasted that the Bais had once been “the most powerful in both political and military circles.”
Former workers from the family’s compounds described extreme brutality, including torture and mutilation. One victim recalled being beaten, having his fingernails pulled out, and two fingers severed for disobeying orders.
The court’s ruling marks one of the harshest sentences issued under China’s ongoing crackdown on transnational crime. The campaign began in 2023 after Beijing demanded Myanmar’s junta dismantle major scam hubs in Laukkaing and extradite wanted ringleaders.
Myanmar authorities handed several of the Bai family members, including Bai Suocheng, over to Chinese custody in early 2024, according to state broadcaster CCTV.
In September, another Chinese court sentenced 11 members of the Ming family, another powerful Laukkaing clan, to death for similar crimes.
“These prosecutions are a clear warning,” said a Chinese investigator interviewed in the state documentary. “No matter who you are or where you are, if you commit heinous crimes against Chinese citizens, you will pay the price.”
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