China has executed four people found guilty of causing six Chinese citizens’ deaths and running scam and gambling operations out of Myanmar worth more than $4bn.
The Shenzhen Intermediate People’s Court in southern China announced the executions on Monday morning in a statement. However, the timing of the executions was not clear.
The executions of 11 other people convicted of running scam centres in Myanmar had been announced last week.
The Shenzhen court sentenced five people accused of running a network of scam centres and casinos to death in November. One of the defendants, group leader Bai Suocheng, died of illness before the sentence was carried out.
The group had established industrial parks in Myanmar’s Kokang region bordering China, from where they allegedly ran gambling and telecom scam operations involving abductions, extortion, forced prostitution, and drug manufacturing and trafficking.
They defrauded victims of more than 29 billion yuan ($4.2bn) and caused the deaths of six Chinese citizens and injuries to others, the court said.
Their crimes “were exceptionally heinous, with particularly serious circumstances and consequences, posing a tremendous threat to society”, the court’s statement said.
The defendants appealed the verdict, but the Guangdong Provincial High People’s Court dismissed their applications, it added.
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