Myanmar govt hands over Chinese scam centre mafia bosses to Chinese

Colombo (News 1st) - The Myanmar government has begun a crackdown on Chinese warlord families running scam centres in the Laukkaing province of Myanmar, foreign media reported. This is a different province to the one in which 56 Sri Lankans are known to be enslaved in online scam centres in Myanmar close to the Thai border.
The Myanmar military junta on Tuesday flew the leaders of three Chinese mafia families to Beijing on a special chartered flight. The three - Bai Suocheng, Wei Chaoren and Liu Zhengxiang - had been running a ‘scam city’ in the province of Laukkaing with the backing of the Myanmar junta since 2009.
But increasing pressure from the Chinese government, together with the weakening of the junta in losses to Myanmar rebel armies in far-flung regions of Myanmar, resulted in the junta turning over the warlords.
The warlords had trafficked tens of thousands of Chinese and other foreign nationals into Laukkaing, turning the sleepy little town into a hive of activity of drugs, prostitution and online scam centres.
Myanmar has handed over to China more than 44,000 people who had been in the scam centres.

The photo, by kind courtesy of Xinhua, shows the warlords being deported in a special aircraft to Beijing.