Myanmar Unwittingly Takes Action Against Industrialized Online Crime
January 29, 2026
Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.
The UN wrote about the link among human trafficking, online and neon-lit casinos, and money laundering. Posts appeared on some of the law enforcement message boards. I included a couple of slides about these integrated systems in my November 2025 law enforcement lectures.
But China has taken action.
If the information in “China Executes 11 Members of Myanmar Scam Mafia,” the Middle Kingdom is sending a message to these unauthorized entities. The write up reports:
Their scam empire came crashing down in 2023, when they were detained and handed over to China by ethnic militias that had taken control of Laukkaing during an escalation in their conflict with Myanmar’s army.
What’s interesting is that the alleged bad actors ended up in the hands of “ethnic militias.” In Myanmar, a group of like minded individuals can team up and claim to be an ethnic militia. Some support a political party or movement; some are opportunists; some linked to the Myanmar border guard force; and others may be supportive of or be supported by another country. The last estimate about the number of ethnic militias in Myanmar was “maybe 20, maybe more.” My source was a donut shop operator in rural Kentucky. You may want to verify this estimate, but let’s assume it is close enough for horse shoes.
Once the scam center prisoners are released, will the people forced to phish go to their home country or will they end up in another phishing factory? Thanks, Midjourney. Good enough.
The unnamed “ethnic militias” snatched the alleged bad actors and somehow moved these individuals to Chinese officials. China, a mysterious country in many ways, found the people guilty. The individuals were killed.
The write up adds:
With these executions Beijing is sending a message of deterrence to would-be scammers. But the business has now moved to Myanmar’s border with Thailand, and to Cambodia and Laos, where China has much less influence.
China is not pleased with unauthorized activites related to certain types of crimes. Killing the bad actors is a reasonably clear message: Try to restart the Crouching Tiger Villa operation, and we will take the offense seriously.
Several observations:
- The illegal online activities are unlikely to be impeded by this series of executions. The question arises, “Why not?”
- The Golden Triangle, Myanmar, and a few other nations or quasi countries have numerous criminal compounds. The question arises, “Why aren’t other enforcement agencies taking steps to curtail these crime factories?”
- Online makes it easy to set up a scam center and operate internationally, why haven’t important “nodes” to the Internet taken action and shut down certain types of online traffic?”
Here’s a final question, “What online service handles about 20 to 25 percent of money laundering?”
Net net: Beijing is sending a message. I am not sure those engaged in these lucrative oiperations will listen or care. Let me amend my statement. Yes, the bad actors will care when the mobile death van rolls out the guerney, the executioner pulls the trigger, or the hangman pushes a button to drop the condemned through a slot on the floor so the termination occurs on the floor below. Until then, international and national enforcement seem ineffective. Online services don’t care. The only people who care are those harmed by the bad actors. Their voices are lost in the noise.
Stephen E Arnold, January 29, 2026
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