Myanmar has handed over three Chinese warlords to Beijing, who were notorious for trafficking thousands of foreign nationals to run scams forcibly. Bai Suocheng, Wei Chaoren, and Liu Zhengxiang were the former leaders of three of four families that ruled Laukkaing on Myanmar’s north-eastern border with China. They were flown to China on a chartered flight, with seven other people suspected to be involved.

It is believed that the Chinese military backed these mafia bosses even though they were situated in Myanmar. Myanmar’s army has been locked in a brutal stalemate since it seized power in early 2021, and it’s now losing battles to well-organized ethnic armies on more than one front. China’s unease at what was happening across its border encouraged three insurgent armies to launch coordinated attacks against the military in late October last year, and it hastened the fall of the mafia families.

The four families took over control of Laukkaing in 2009. Liu Guoxi, who led the fourth family, died in 2020. Over the years, their reign turned the poor Burmese town into a den of criminal activity, especially for lucrative scam centers. The UN estimates that hundreds of thousands of people have been trafficked into these centers across South East Asia.