China executed four people found guilty of causing the deaths of six Chinese citizens and running scam and gambling operations out of Myanmar worth more than $4 billion, authorities said on Monday (February 2, 2026).

The Shenzhen Intermediate People’s Court in south China announced the executions in a statement on Monday (February 2) morning, though it was not clear when they had been carried out.

The executions of 11 other people accused of running scam centres in Myanmar were announced last week.

The Shenzhen court had sentenced five people, including members of the notorious Bai family, accused of running a network of scam centres and casinos, to death in November.

One of the defendants, group leader Bai Suocheng, died of illness after his conviction, the court said.

The group had established industrial parks in Myanmar’s Kokang region bordering China, from where they were accused of running gambling and telecom scam operations involving kidnappings, extortion, forced prostitution and drug manufacturing and trafficking.

They defrauded victims of more than 29 billion yuan ($4.2 billion) and caused the death of six Chinese citizens and injuries to others, the court said.

Their crimes “were exceptionally heinous, with particularly serious circumstances and consequences, posing a tremendous threat to society,” the court’s statement read.

The defendants had initially appealed their verdict, but the Guangdong Provincial High People’s Court dismissed their appeals, it added.

The executions are part of a broader crackdown by Beijing on scam operations in Southeast Asia, where scam parks have become an industrial-scale business, especially in Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos. A mix of trafficked and willing labourers has carried out digital scams on victims around the world, including thousands of Chinese citizens.

Authorities in the region face growing international pressure from China, the United States and other nations to address the proliferation of crime.

More than 600 people fled one of Myanmar’s most notorious scam centres and crossed into Thailand, a Thai provincial official told AFP on Thursday (October 23, 2025), after a military raid on the compound.

“677 people fled from the scam centre” KK Park in Myanmar across the Moei river into Thailand as of Thursday morning, said Sawanit Suriyakul Na Ayutthaya, deputy Governor of Tak province on the Myanmar border.

Sprawling compounds where internet fraudsters target people with romance and business cons have thrived along Myanmar’s loosely governed border during its civil war, sparked by a 2021 coup.

A highly publicised crackdown starting in February saw around 7,000 workers repatriated and Thailand enact a cross-border internet blockade.

But an AFP investigation this month revealed construction has continued apace, while Starlink internet service receivers have been installed en masse, seeming to connect the hubs to the Elon Musk-owned satellite network.

“Immigration police and a military task force have worked together to provide assistance under humanitarian procedures… and they will undergo screening,” Mr. Sawanit told AFP on Thursday.

He added the process will allow authorities to determine if individuals are victims of human trafficking, and if not, they may be prosecuted for illegal border crossing.

While some scam workers are clearly trafficked into often fortified compounds, experts say others go voluntarily with hopes of earning more in the multibillion-dollar illicit industry than they can at home.

The Tak Provincial Administration office, which oversees the area, said in a statement that the group entering from Myanmar comprised “foreign nationals” — both men and women — and authorities expected more to cross into Thailand.