China sentences three people to death for running Myanmar scam centres

Dozens more were imprisoned for their involvement in crimes including telecommunications fraud, trafficking and murder.

A court in eastern China has sentenced three members of a criminal gang to death for operating a network of scam centres in Myanmar.

In a statement released on Tuesday, Quanzhou Intermediate People’s Court, a high court in southeastern Fujian province, said it had sentenced Wei Huairen, Chen Dawei and Liao Jingfang for their involvement in the “Wei family criminal gang”.

The syndicate was involved in crimes including drug trafficking, organised prostitution, illegal casino operations, telecommunications fraud and the murder of at least two Chinese nationals.

The court said Wei was one of the group’s leaders and was found guilty of several crimes, including murder.

Three other members were jailed for life, while 55 others were handed sentences ranging from three years and three months to 24 years in prison.

The court said the gang’s operations netted more than $1.8bn.

Chinese state broadcaster CCTV on Tuesday described the gang as operating 14 “large-scale” compounds and having lured “thousands” of Chinese nationals with promises of high wages to Myanmar.

The verdict comes as Beijing intensified its crackdown on cross-border scam networks operating in southeast Asia, where scam parks have become an industrial-scale business.

The International Organization for Migration in July warned that scam centres in southeast Asia employ as many as 300,000 workers and use online schemes to defraud people in the West, many of them elderly.

Many of those conducting the online scams are trafficked foreign nationals forced to work in prison-like compounds.