Wei Huairen has been indicted on charges of fraud, murder, extortion, and organizing illegal border crossings, China's state television CCTV reported on May 22.
According to prosecutors, since 2019, this fraud ring has exploited the military and political influence of the Wei family in Myanmar's Kokang region to operate numerous "fraudulent complexes," swindling more than 24 billion yuan (US$3.5 billion) from victims in China. Two Chinese citizens were murdered by them.
This gang also provided protection for "investors" involved in telecommunications fraud within the aforementioned complexes.
Prosecutors accused Chen Dawei of involvement in two murders and numerous other crimes. Three other suspects, Liao Jingfang, Kang Min, and Xiong Hengxing, were also charged with a range of offenses.
The trial at the Quanzhou Intermediate Court in Fujian Province took place from May 19-22, but the verdict has not yet been announced.
This is Beijing's latest effort to dismantle criminal "empires" that once operated with near impunity in the region along the Myanmar border.
The Wei clan was one of the infamous "four great clans" that once ruled Kokang, a semi-autonomous region in northern Myanmar bordering Yunnan province in China.
The four clans of Wei, Bai, Liu, and Ming controlled the local economy , with activities such as mining, casinos, real estate, and especially lucrative telecommunications scams.
These clans operated for years with little to no punishment, using their own armed forces and political connections to run complexes where forced labor was employed to perpetrate online scams.
Those who failed to meet quotas or attempted to escape were beaten, tortured, and even murdered.
The situation began to change in late 2023, when Chinese officials, in coordination with local authorities, launched a campaign to apprehend and extradite key figures.
This campaign has so far resulted in the arrest of more than 57,000 Chinese citizens involved in fraudulent activities.
In March of this year, both China's Supreme Court and top prosecutors' offices highlighted the crackdown on the "four powerful families" in their annual work reports, stating that 16 individuals had been sentenced to death, and 39 others had received life imprisonment or the death penalty.
In October 2025, CCTV broadcast Wei Huiyin's confession, stating that the Wei clan differed from Kokang gangs because the leader directly commanded an armed force, while other groups hired militias.
In January of this year, 11 members of the Ming clan were executed on charges including fraud, drug trafficking, and murder. Five others were sentenced to death by a court in Wenzhou, Zhejiang province.
Last November, a court in Shenzhen sentenced five members of the Bai clan to death, including their leader Bai Suocheng and his son Bai Yingcang. Bai Suocheng died in prison before the sentence could be carried out, while the other four were executed in February of this year.
In October 2025, several members of the Liu family were also prosecuted in court in Longyan City, Fujian Province.
Source: https://tienphong.vn/trung-quoc-xet-xu-trum-lua-dao-thuoc-tu-dai-gia-toc-myanmar-post1845545.tpo
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