Chinese police investigations reveal brutality in fraud farm operations in Myanmar

CHONGQING – Chinese police on Oct 17 announced the prosecution of a criminal empire that had allegedly lured Chinese citizens to Myanmar and forced them to work at fraud farms through violent abuse, releasing details about the victims’ suffering.

The syndicate – fronted by Xu Laofa, also known as Xu Faqi – had severed victims’ fingers, beaten captives with bamboo rods and even gone as far as to kill those who did not obey orders, local media reported on Oct 17.

Public hearings for six syndicate members, including Xu, were held between Sept 17 and 19 at the Chongqing Fifth Intermediate People’s Court, the reports said.

Charges included fraud, intentional injury, illegal detention, extortion, smuggling and drug trafficking. The verdict will be announced at a later date.

This court case follows that of another involving a criminal syndicate operating scam factories in northern Myanmar near the border with China.

A court in eastern Zhejiang province’s Wenzhou city had in September sentenced to death 11 members of the Ming family and handed down long jail terms to other family members for running illegal gambling and scam operations worth over US$1.4 billion (S$1.81 billion) and for the deaths of the captives.

Chinese police have described the rise of organisations like Xu’s as “a new generation of Kokang syndicates that are smaller, more mobile but no less violent than the infamous Four Families”, including the Ming family, that used to run most of the crime syndicates in Myanmar. 

Xu, who was also the former head of Zhazishu Township in Kokang in northern Myanmar, is also alleged to have used his Myanmar political and militia ties to carry out the alleged scams to lure and cheat Chinese citizens, the reports added.

The reports also said Xu’s other titles included being the chairman of a shell company known as Shengyuan Group and the commander-in-chief of a Myanmar militia group.

It is unclear if he was formerly a Chinese national, but he is reportedly now a citizen of Myanmar. 

Probes showed that Xu had built or was the mastermind of 14 large-scale fraud compounds in Kokang involving more than 1.1 billion yuan (S$200 million), including the Tianzi Hotel, Dongcheng Industrial Park, Baobao Village and the 311 Building, which the authorities described as “modern-day prisons”.

Investigators also discovered evidence of victims being tortured, such as bloody handprints smeared across concrete walls, and signs of people having been beaten and imprisoned. 

Officers told local media outlets that they found “substantial presence of blood” at these operations run by Xu and that they were the “last marks of victims for failing to meet their captors’ demands”.

DNA tests have been run to confirm the identities of victims, but “many cases of missing Chinese victims have continued to go unsolved”, the reports said. 

The police also described how they found walls etched with rows of numbers and tally marks, which “indicated a silent calendar of the days endured by captives”.

Instances of mutilation, food and sleep deprivation and beatings were common, according to survivors and Chinese police.

The survivors also told Chinese media of the daily abuse, with one victim whose surname is Qiu saying that one of his fingers was chopped off for disobeying Xu’s guards.

The survivor said that the “remaining half of my finger was infected, resulting in bone corrosion”.

Probes also showed that some victims’ tendons were severed by bamboo sticks when they failed to carry out their tasks, while women were forced into prostitution. 

Xu and members of his syndicate were extradited by China, alongside members of the Four Families, in January 2024.

China strengthened its clampdown on telco frauds

after Chinese actor Wang Xing was duped into working for a scam operation in Myanmar in January 2025. The predicament of Mr Wang, who was subsequently rescued, sparked a public outcry among those Chinese whose family members had fallen prey to similar scams and had not been released.

So far, more than 57,000 Chinese suspects of telco fraud have been arrested through joint operations, the media reports said.