Good news, everyone! The Chinese Communist Party is cracking down on crime. Of course there’s no crime in China, since China is very, very safe thanks to the CCP. But there’s crime in other countries, you see.
On Tuesday, a court in southeastern China sentenced three members of the “Wei family criminal gang” to death and sent dozens more to prison. The Wei clan is one of the so-called “four families” that ran criminal syndicates in Kokang, a region of northern Myanmar right on the Chinese border. State broadcaster CCTV called them the “most violent criminal force in northern Myanmar.”
According to the court, the gang ran drug trafficking, prostitution, illegal casinos, and telecom fraud. They also murdered at least two Chinese citizens. CCTV says they operated 14 large-scale scam compounds and lured Chinese job seekers across the border with fake promises of high wages. Once there, many people ended up trapped in prison-like compounds, forced to scam for their captors. The gang reportedly pulled in more than $1.8 billion.
But these gangs operated in the open, for years, under the protection of Myanmar’s military junta. Experts say the junta looked the other way because scam profits flowed to its militia allies, the same militias it needs to fight rebels. Back in January, the CCP executed 11 members of the rival Ming family. The Mings weren’t just gangsters. They belonged to a militia aligned with the junta.
And who’s the junta’s biggest backer? The CCP.
