China tried three times to persuade powerful families in northern Myanmar to shut down scam operations before Myanmar police made a massive arrest in 2023, according to a new documentary broadcast on Chinese state television.

The three-part documentary, which was jointly produced by China’s Ministry of Public Security and state broadcaster CCTV and began airing on Monday, shows obstacles faced by Chinese authorities in pursuing criminal networks and scam groups operating in northern Myanmar across the border.

Chinese authorities said most of the groups in northern Myanmar had been dismantled and China’s cases concluded this year. Some 15 core members of syndicates have been executed for a range of crimes, from murder to fraud and human trafficking, while one person who had been sentenced died before the executions were carried out.

Telecoms and online scams became a major problem in China in the 2010s, fuelled by the spread of mobile phones, the internet and online payments.

The documentary said 80 per cent of telecoms and online fraud crimes that targeted Chinese nationals were committed overseas, with northern Myanmar accounting for a significant It said jurisdiction was a key obstacle to China’s efforts to combat cross-border scam operations, requiring Chinese authorities to pursue multiple approaches. Talks with Kokang’s four major families were among the efforts disclosed for the first time in the programme.

The four families – the Bai, Wei, Liu and Ming families – built extensive political, business and armed networks in Kokang, a predominantly ethnic Chinese region bordering Yunnan province in southwestern China.

Video of Bai Yingcang, a senior member of the Bai family who was executed in February, showed him saying Chinese officials had warned the groups several times to eliminate scam operations “unconditionally”.

During one meeting, representatives of the four families and a Chinese delegation held talks for three hours in a small, makeshift structure on the Myanmar side of the border, but the talks ended without any clear progress.

Bai quoted Ming Xuechang, head of the Ming family, as saying at the time: “If we stop, we have nothing to eat”.

Ming died by suicide in November 2023 while Myanmar authorities were attempting to arrest him.

Crimes linked to the Bai family involved more than 20 billion yuan (US$2.9 billion) in gains from fraud and gambling while the Wei family was linked to more than 5 billion yuan in fraud-related funds, according to Xinhua, which cited the Ministry of Public Security in October last year.

At least 120,000 people across Myanmar may be held in situations where they are forced to carry out online scams, according to a 2023 United Nations report. Those trapped in scam centres face beatings, abuse and, in some cases, murder.

At the peak of distress calls, Chinese police were receiving 40 requests a day from family members for help to free victims held by the criminal organisations, according to the documentary.

It said collecting evidence overseas to prosecute perpetrators was another major challenge, as Myanmar authorities were initially uncooperative and ongoing conflict risked destroying evidence.

“Fighter jets from Myanmar flew over our heads and dropped bombs on the battlefield [on the Myanmar side]. All we could think about was making sure our evidence was not destroyed by the fighting,” Na Xin, a senior criminal investigator with the Kunming Public Security Bureau, told the programme.

Na said, “Myanmar authorities had maintained that no Chinese nationals had been killed in the beginning”. Chinese police retrieved several bodies a day after negotiations with the Myanmar side.

Chinese investigators later entered the core areas of the compounds to conduct further searches and collect evidence, according to the documentary, which said information related to homicide, gambling and fraud and gathered through multiple rounds of investigation was returned to China.

“Cross-border investigations require cooperation to obtain, preserve and lawfully share evidence that can support a prosecution,” said Xu Peng, a research fellow at the Humanitarian and Conflict Response Institute at the University of Manchester.

Joint operations by Chinese and Myanmar authorities led to 59,000 suspected telecoms fraud offenders being repatriated to China, according to Chinese authorities.

Some 76,486 people were arrested between October 5, 2023 and September 29, 2026, in operations targeting online scam and illegal gambling sites in Myanmar, the military-run Myawady news portal said, citing Myanmar’s president, Min Aung Hlaing, on Thursday.

Kota Watanabe, a lecturer in global and regional studies at Toyo University in Tokyo, said the disruption of scam operations in northern Myanmar could be attributed to pressure from the Chinese government, but scam activities continued to expand in other parts of the country.

“The regime [in Myanmar] has been complicit and benefiting from the scamming operation through bribes, and its crackdown measures were only a show,” Watanabe said.

He said scam compounds had proliferated in areas along the Myanmar-Thai border under the protection of armed groups with ties to Myanmar’s military.

In a recent case, a Shanghai music teacher went missing after travelling to Thailand on September 24. A police investigation later showed his phone signal in Myanmar, although authorities have not determined what happened to him.

“China did not have as much influence on local armed groups and militias protecting scamming operations as in the China-Myanmar border areas due to the geographical distance and the lack of historical ties,” Watanabe said.

Surachanee “Hammerli” Sriyai, CEO and co-founder of S&I Strategic Advisory, said global economic pressure was among the factors allowing scam operations to persist.

“Poverty and the global economic downturn make people [so] desperate that they’re willing to take a chance for ludicrous job opportunities,” she said.

“Without adequate social safety net programmes, people will continue to be vulnerable to trafficking.”