China executed 11 people it found guilty in connection with killings of Chinese citizens and a large-scale scam and gambling operation run from Myanmar, according to a statement from the Wenzhou city Intermediate People’s Court. The court said the executions were carried out after the defendants’ death sentences had been upheld following an appeal process.
The court said the case involved 14 Chinese citizens who were killed, and it said the defendants were also convicted of running scam and gambling operations worth more than $1 billion. It named the location and scope of the crackdown in a statement released Thursday morning, after it had previously sentenced the group in September.
Among those whose names the court listed were Ming Guoping and Ming Zhenzhen, members of the Ming family that the court said led the scam and gambling operations. The court also named other key members it said included Zhou Weichang, Wu Hongming and Luao Jianzhang.
The court said those sentenced were detained in November 2023, during a period when Chinese authorities were pressing authorities in border areas shared with Myanmar to crack down on scams, according to AP reporting. The court said the group filed an appeal that was rejected by the court in November, and it said the court documents were not made public at the time.
In the background, AP said scam parks have grown into an industrial-scale business in parts of Southeast Asia, particularly Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos, where a mix of trafficked and willing labor has been used to run digital scams targeting victims worldwide. Authorities in the region have faced increasing international pressure from China, the United States and other nations to address the spread of criminal activity.
The Wenzhou court’s statement did not include further details about how the executions were carried out, beyond announcing that the death sentences were carried out for the 11 people it had described in its case.