MYANMAR’s junta said it arrested two cyber scam ringleaders operating from a lawless northern town and wanted by China, and that a third killed himself during the arrest.

Online scam compounds have mushroomed in Myanmar’s borderlands, staffed by citizens from China and other countries who are often trafficked and forced to swindle their compatriots.

The scams anger Beijing, a major ally of the junta, and China has repeatedly told the military to crack down on the industry, which analysts said was worth billions of dollars a year.

“Ming Xuechang, Ming Guoping, Ming Julan… were arrested in Laukkai town in the Kokang self-administered zone,” the junta’s information team said in a statement late yesterday.

Ming Xuechang “shot himself while he was being arrested and died later while getting treatment”, the statement said, without giving details or mentioning when the three had been arrested.

Media reports said Ming Xuechang was a former representative for the Kokang region in the Shan state regional parliament.

Ming Guoping and Ming Julan were handed over to Chinese police yesterday, the junta statement said.

Chinese authorities issued an arrest warrant for the three and another person named Ming Zhenzhen last week.

Ming Xuechang headed a group that “organised and opened fraud dens for a long time… carrying out telecommunications and network fraud crimes that target Chinese citizens”, Chinese state media said.

The junta statement made no mention of Ming Zhenzhen.

AFP has contacted the Chinese embassy in Yangon for comment.

The United Nations said this year at least 120,000 people could be trapped in scam compounds in Myanmar.

Last month, an armed alliance of ethnic minority groups launched an offensive against the military across a swathe of northern Shan state, where Laukkai is located.

One of the groups, the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, has said it aimed to recapture the former boomtown after it was forced out by the military in 2009.

As fighting approached Laukkai, thousands of Myanmar migrant workers have fled.

Some told AFP they had walked for days and been forced to sleep by the roadside as artillery and airstrikes pounded the area. – AFP, November 17, 2023.