Beijing’s Docuseries on Myanmar Scams Implicates Junta But Glosses Chinese Financing

A new docuseries by China’s state broadcaster details how a billion-dollar scam industry thrived in northern Myanmar under the protection of four powerful Kokang families aligned with the military regime.

Titled “The Demise of Telecom Fraud in Northern Myanmar” and produced by the Ministry of Public Security and China Media Group, the three-part documentary began airing on October 5.

It identifies Wa territory under the United Wa State Army (UWSA) as the incubator for northern Myanmar’s scam economy, which later spread to Mongla, Kokang, and Muse on the border with China’s Yunan Province.

Wa State’s Mong Pawk Township alone hosted 265 fraud sites at the height of the telecom fraud boom in 2021-2022, the documentary says. It adds that Mong Pawk chief Bao Yanban amassed so much wealth from the scams that he would sun‑dry banknotes on rooftops to prevent mold.

Northern Myanmar’s long‑standing fragmentation into armed fiefdoms had created fertile ground for cross‑border telecom fraud, replacing traditional vice industries like sex, gambling, and drugs, it says.

The documentary claims 80 percent of scam hubs targeting Chinese citizens operate abroad, mostly in northern Myanmar, where military-aligned armed groups provided a safe haven for criminal syndicates in return for a share of profits.

Kokang’s Four Families

The series details how four Chinese crime families carved up Kokang on the China border, transforming its capital Laukkai into an industrial fraud hub of four districts controlled by the Liu (east), Wei (west), Bai (north) and Ming (south). Even the public gardens were turned into a scam park, according to a Chinese police source.

However, the documentary draws a veil over the origins of Myanmar’s scam economy and its powerful Chinese financiers.

Instead, it details how the fraud infrastructure was built by Bai family head Bai Suocheng. As chairman of the Kokang Self-Administered Zone and lawmaker for the military’s proxy Union Solidarity and Development Party, he created the Kokang Entertainment Management Committee in 2019, issuing permits and collecting protection fees from scam sites disguised as entertainment venues. His son, Bai Yingcang, commanded a force of around 1,500 militia troops who were rented out to scam financiers like Yang Liqiang as enforcers, killing workers who resisted. The Bai clan established 41 scam parks, before key clan members were apprehended, deported to China, and executed for killing Chinese citizens.

(Left) Bai Yingcang (third from left) at an event in Naypyitaw attended by Min Aung Hlaing. (Right) Bai being transferred to Chinese police in Naypyitaw on Jan. 30, 2024. / Xinhua

“First, there was gambling, then came fraud. These illicit businesses form the foundation of northern Myanmar’s entire economy,” said Bai Suocheng’s son, Bai Yingcang, in a televised confession following his arrest.

The role of the Liu family was to institutionalize fraud through corporate structures centered on the Fully Light Group, run by Kokang’s richest man, Liu Zhengxiang.

It also played a key part in recruitment for the expanding scam sites, luring potential staff and trafficking them across the border. Observing local financiers’ newfound wealth, the Liu clan upgraded hotels, casinos, and brothels, trafficking women into prostitution and supplying recreational drugs like Happy Water.