Redazione RHC : 6 October 2025 21:16
Amid China’s long battle against cross-border fraud, authorities have issued a verdict in one of the most high-profile cases in recent years.
It concerns a large-scale criminal network operating in northern Myanmar and linked to four clans, dubbed the ” Four Big Families ” by Chinese media. The court found 39 people guilty, 16 of whom were sentenced to death , 11 to life imprisonment , and the remainder to prison terms ranging from 5 to 24 years.
Those executed include key figures involved in the creation and control of so-called telecommunications fraud factories.
The investigation began in the summer of 2023 following a tragic incident at the ” Hidden Tiger Villa ,” a massive fraud hub located on the Myanmar-China border. This fenced-off enclave comprised hotels, shopping malls, and buildings used as centers for defrauding citizens via the internet and telephone.
The facility was guarded by a private army of approximately two thousand personnel . In October of that year, several prisoners employed as fraudulent call center operators attempted to escape. Soldiers opened fire on the crowd, killing at least sixty people . Unconfirmed reports suggest that the victims may have included undercover Chinese law enforcement officers engaged in covert operations.
This incident marked a turning point. As early as November, China’s Ministry of the Interior had announced a reward for the capture of the group’s leaders . Within days, four of the leaders were arrested.
A large-scale international cooperation operation followed: with the participation of Myanmar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, China secured the extradition of ten mafia bosses, including members of three clans.
Each of these families controlled their own sector, from telecommunications infrastructure and casinos to logistics and money laundering . In some cases, the suspects were linked to organ and drug trafficking.
Subsequently, in December 2024, China’s Supreme People’s Procuratorate formally indicted 39 members of one of the three clans. The case documents detailed brutal methods of controlling “staff”: many prisoners were offered the chance to buy their freedom if they failed to meet a daily quota of defrauded victims.
One of the victims reported being beaten with steel pipes for trying to escape and killing her partner. Leadership of the group had now passed to the founder’s granddaughter, after the family leader shot himself during an arrest attempt by Chinese security forces.
According to China’s Ministry of Interior, more than 53,000 suspected online scammers were repatriated from northern Myanmar during the operation, which ran from 2023 to the end of 2024.
The effective cooperation between the authorities of the two countries has dealt a severe blow to the shadow infrastructure of cross-border cybercrime , which China has been fighting for years.
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