According to a CCTV documentary, Chinese authorities engaged Kokang's "Four Families"—Bai, Wei, Liu, and Ming—three separate times prior to the major sweep, demanding an unconditional halt to telecom fraud. Bai Yingcang recalled that one negotiation lasted nearly three hours. Ming Xuechang stubbornly refused at the time, claiming they would have "nothing to eat" if they stopped; Ming later committed suicide during an arrest operation in November 2023.
At the height of the crisis, police in China received up to 40 distress reports a day from trapped victims' families. Despite complex local armed factions and cross-border jurisdiction hurdles, joint crackdowns have since repatriated roughly 59,000 scam suspects to China, with over 76,000 individuals processed across fraud and gambling sweeps.
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