For the scion of a crime family linked to human trafficking and enslavement, money laundering and global cyberscams, Wei Qingtao was brazenly public. His Douyin account, the Chinese-language version of TikTok, flaunted the excesses of his life in a remote corner of Myanmar by the border with China: Bentleys and Lamborghinis, rare cigars and private jets.
When the 27-year-old partied at the multistory, glass-walled nightclub he owned in a region called Kokang, he’d throw crisp Chinese yuan bills into the crowd as international techno DJs, chauffeured in along dirt roads, performed their sets.
In November, the good times rolled to a stop. Wei’s social media presence vanished. He soon appeared in a different kind of video: reading a scripted confession while in Chinese custody.
“The money we make from cyberscams comes from the pensions of everyday Chinese people,” Wei said, a baggy gray sweater replacing his bespoke blazers. “This time, the Chinese government has made up its mind. … We must not cling to any illusions.” Within weeks, his uncle was in cuffs on a plane to China, flanked by dozens of police officers.
The detention of Wei and at least 15 other alleged senior crime family members and their associates was lavishly covered by Chinese media, designed to showcase Beijing’s reach. This was proof, Chinese officials said, of their determination to crush transnational criminals victimizing their citizens, no matter where they are based.
Chinese state media trumpeted the arrests of the Myanmar crime families as testament to their ability to crack down on cyberscams. (Video: Chinese Ministry of Public Security)
The official Chinese Communist Party news outlet called the arrests a “death knell” for the scams, which tried to dupe people into giving up their money including through bogus investments schemes and fake online romances. “No matter how … big you become,” the People’s Daily wrote, “you cannot escape the severe punishment of the law.”
That crusading narrative is incomplete, however.
A Washington Post investigation found that Kokang’s criminal networks — principally led by the Wei, Bai and Liu families, according to U.N. officials, Chinese court records and analysts — had for more than a decade enjoyed close relations with Chinese officials, primarily in neighboring Yunnan province, along with support from Beijing and the military government in Myanmar. The Myanmar military chief, Min Aung Hlaing, further solidified the families as political and economic brokers after taking power in a 2021 coup.
Evidence of the Kokang families’ deep cooperation with Chinese state officials has partially been scrubbed from the Chinese internet and social media but some of it was archived and verified by The Post. Statements, news releases and photos on the official websites and social media pages of the Kokang authorities, and the Myanmar and Chinese governments show that they worked together on multiple economic projects worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
Lu Zhihua, then deputy mayor of Lincang city,