U.S. media investigation: The umbrella of Myanmar's criminal network is the Chinese Communist Party
Image : On 12 January 2019, the border crossing of Muse Town, Shan State, Kokang Region, Myanmar, from here you can cross the border into Yunnan, China. (Ye Aung Thu/AFP via Getty Images)
"The Kokang family is the engine of Sino-Myanmar economic relations. Their economic influence comes from (illegal business) and from the huge network of relationships they have established with economic and political elites across China." A Burmese expert said so.
An investigative report released by The Washington Post on June 19 revealed that Myanmar's criminal network is not only protected by the Myanmar military government, but also by the official protection of the Chinese Communist Party. The four major criminal families in Kokang, a region bordering China in northern Myanmar, developed under the protection of the Chinese Communist Party, but when their actions displeased the Chinese Communist Party, the Chinese Communist Party brutally cracked down on them.
The expert on Myanmar issues called these Kokang criminal families "monsters" created by the Chinese Communist Party but out of control.
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The Kokang criminal families cooperate deeply with the Chinese Communist Party authorities
The Post's investigation found that according to UN officials, Chinese court records and analysts, the criminal network in Kokang is mainly led by the Wei, Bai and Liu families (Note: There are two Liu families in Kokang, and together with the Wei and Bai families, they are collectively called the "Four Major Families"), who have maintained close ties with the Chinese Communist Party officials for more than a decade, mainly the Yunnan Provincial Government of the Chinese Communist Party bordering it, and are also supported by Beijing and the Myanmar military government. After Myanmar's military chief Min Aung Hlaing came to power in a coup in 2021, he further consolidated the status of these families as political and economic brokers.
Evidence of the Kokang family's deep cooperation with the Chinese Communist Party government officials has been partially deleted from the Chinese Internet and social media, but some of the evidence has been archived and verified by the Post. Official statements, press releases and photos on the official websites and social media pages of Kokang authorities, the Burmese military and the Chinese government show they have collaborated on multiple economic projects worth billions of dollars.
Kokang is off-limits to journalists, but online video clips, photos and interviews with more than two dozen people who have worked in Kokang offer a window into the region, which is home to more than 300 fraud parks, also known as “compounds.” The United Nations estimates that hundreds of thousands of people have been trafficked into the region. Interpol estimates that Kokang is the center of an international fraud network that operates a $3 trillion industry around the world.
Most of the people working in telecom fraud in Kokang are Chinese citizens who were tricked there or trafficked there. When they fail to meet their financial goals or try to escape, they are beaten, tortured or even killed. Some of the cases have been confirmed by verified video clips, photos and text message screenshots provided by victims.
The Post also reviewed Chinese court records and found more than 1,100 criminal cases related to Kokang in the past decade, some of which specifically targeted the fraud “compounds” and businesses run by these families. Records show that almost all criminal activities are concentrated on illegal gambling, human trafficking and drugs, and the suspects are low-level personnel, while the patriarchs of these families continue to cooperate with Chinese officials.
Kokang families run both legal and illegal businesses, often simultaneously on the same property. As Chinese leader Xi Jinping began to promote his massive “Belt and Road Initiative” initially worth $1 trillion to expand the CCP’s regional and global influence, the Kokang families were seen as useful partners and forces to ensure stability in their location. Corporate records show that as Han Chinese, these families set up companies in China and obtained Chinese citizenship cards.
For example, in May 2023, the Liu family attended as VIPs at a high-profile China-Myanmar border trade expo held in Naypyidaw, the capital of Myanmar, which was aimed at promoting “mutually beneficial cooperation” between China and Myanmar. The Liu family’s company booth was side by side with major Chinese companies such as Huawei and China Telecom. Chinese officials including the Chinese ambassador to Myanmar, the governor of Yunnan Province, and the mayor of Lincang were present.
According to estimates by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the Chinese Communist Party's protective umbrella has enabled these families to rule Kokang, a Han-majority region, and turn the region into the center of a sophisticated criminal network that generates billions of dollars in revenue each year.
"They are among the most powerful and profitable casino and scam operators in the region, and are considered untouchable," said Jeremy Douglas, UNODC's representative for Southeast Asia and the Pacific.
However, this online fraud has caused growing anger among hundreds of thousands of Chinese victims and the families of those who were trafficked to Kokang to work in online fraud. According to officials and analysts, as fraud and human trafficking became a domestic political issue in China, the Chinese Communist Party was finally forced to take action against these criminal families. The Chinese Anti-Fraud Center said in late May that Chinese police had intercepted $157 billion in fraud funds since 2021.
Jason Tower, director of the U.S. Institute of Peace's Myanmar program, said: "The Kokang family is the engine of China-Myanmar economic relations. Their economic influence comes from (illegal business) and from the vast network of relationships they have established with economic and political elites across China."
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The Kokang crime family developed with the support of the Chinese Communist Party
The Washington Post reported that Kokang, far away from the hinterland of Myanmar, has long been synonymous with crime and is a den of everything from heroin and methamphetamine production to gambling, all of which initially flourished under the rule of Kokang's early warlord Peng Jiasheng and his Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA). Peng Jiasheng was also supported by the Chinese Communist Party at the beginning.
In 2009, the Myanmar military launched a crackdown on the National Democratic Alliance Army and defeated Peng Jiasheng's allied forces after winning over some of Peng Jiasheng's senior subordinates. In order to bring the Kokang region under central control, the commander who led the operation, Min Aung Hlaing, was carefully selected to lead the Myanmar military two years later, and then became the leader of the Myanmar military government through a coup. Min Aung Hlaing also received support from the Chinese Communist Party. After Peng Jiasheng's defeat, he led his allies to flee to China for refuge and was protected by the CCP.
Analysts say that the Bai, Wei and Liu families who betrayed Peng Jiasheng then gained control of the Kokang region and its underground economy. These families control all aspects of life in the Kokang region, and they have become powerful figures, such as the leaders of the Kokang Border Guard of the Myanmar Army, legislators and government leaders in the Kokang region, and big business owners.
Richard Horsey, senior adviser on Myanmar affairs at the International Crisis Group, said: "(These families) are involved in various illegal businesses that already exist there, and they have also established more illegal businesses."
At the same time, as the CCP promotes "Belt and Road" investment and deepens the relationship between the Myanmar military government and the CCP, the Chinese identity of these Kokang big families has also strengthened their status.
According to official Chinese statements, local authorities in Yunnan have cooperated with these Kokang families on investment opportunities such as expanding ports and two cross-border economic zones. In 2017, when China gathered foreign leaders in Beijing for the first Belt and Road Forum, CCTV promoted the newly expanded Qingshuihe Port in Lincang as a model plan to connect Yunnan and Kokang. Soon after, China allocated $6 million in central government subsidies to the Qingshuihe Border Free Trade Zone. China's Ministry of Finance also raised funds from the Asian Development Bank, which eventually approved a $250 million loan for road and other infrastructure construction after Chinese officials visited the China-Myanmar border in April 2018.
Experts say China believes that "development is the path to stability," so the overall approach to volatile border areas is to develop the economy there.
Liu Yun, a researcher at the Beijing-based Taihe Institute, told The Post: "China's main goal with Kokang is to ensure border security, and to do that, it must help the other side solve economic and livelihood problems."
ADB spokesman said the Qingshuihe port project in Lincang, Yunnan, "aims to improve the economic growth potential and living standards of residents in these and surrounding areas of China" and that the development of the project "is in line with ADB policies and procedures."
The Kokang family has developed its assets into a diversified conglomerate. Corporate records show that Liu Zhengxiang's family's "Fully Light Group" is involved in various lucrative industries in Myanmar, including real estate, hotels, gems, agriculture, cigarettes, pesticides, etc., and has opened subsidiaries in China and Cambodia.
But according to UN officials and US diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks, the core of Kokang's corporate empire is actually casinos, underground banks and money laundering.
High rollers and ordinary gamblers from China have flocked to Kokang because of the numerous gaps in the border between Yunnan and Kokang. A large casino has been built in Lao Cai, the capital of Kokang, and is open 24 hours a day. The Kokang family also plans to build a Kokang airport and position Kokang as a destination for foreign tourists similar to Macau.
Behind the huge casinos, a more sinister industry has begun to develop in Kokang. Chinese court documents show that since at least 2018, "criminal groups" have begun to smuggle people into "Crouching Tiger Villa" and force them to work in fraud. According to Chinese official media and a person who worked in the fraud compound, "Crouching Tiger Villa" is owned by the Ming family, who followed the Bai family to prosper.
After the outbreak of the new coronavirus (CCP virus) pandemic, the closure of the China-Myanmar border cut off the source of money for the casinos, which accelerated the transformation of Kokang's economy into telecommunications fraud. But what really put pressure on Kokang was the military coup in Myanmar in 2021. As the West imposed sanctions on Min Aung Hlaing's military government, Min Aung Hlaing turned to these big families for economic and political protection, including requiring them to pay large taxes.
According to Kokang government social media posts and Burmese state media reports, these families have donated generously to Min Aung Hlaing’s favorite projects (such as building marble Buddha statues and pagodas) and used their ties to China to keep bilateral trade and infrastructure projects going. The patriarchs of these families have become some of Myanmar’s most decorated citizens, have been awarded numerous honors and awards, and have represented Myanmar at major regional summits.
“These families feel that there is nothing they cannot do,” said Huo Xi of the International Crisis Group.
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The Kokang fraud compound is like a living hell
Most of the people who engage in fraud in Kokang come across the border from China, and some come from farther places such as Malaysia. When they arrive in Kokang, they are actually imprisoned in a specially built fraud compound. The compound has rooms similar to large call centers, where fraudsters sit in front of rows of computer screens and are trained to defraud the savings of the victims on the other end of the phone.
According to the note found in Crouching Tiger Villa and posted on the Chinese short video social media app Douyin, scammers often call their older relatives to talk about business trips and family ties to "establish an image of responsibility, kindness and respect" while occasionally "lightheartedly discussing 'investment' opportunities." One scammer said they also assess whether the other party prefers to talk about romantic things.
Witnesses said many of the scams were located in hotel and casino complexes built by the families many years ago, and some were built specifically for telecom fraud purposes. These buildings have some obvious signs, such as iron bars on the windows, high walls, and even Myanmar military snipers on the top of the buildings.
A handyman hired to build soundproof phone booths in a hotel owned by the Liu family said he was interrupted by screams while working and saw a supervisor beating three men whose hands were tied behind their backs and tied to lead pipes.
A Taiwanese woman who was trafficked to Laojie told the Post that she was caught and waterboarded when she tried to escape. A Chinese man who was forcibly taken to Kokang by knife-wielding men after responding online in China to an acting job said he saw other people being beaten with chains in the Kokang compound. He also mentioned in an interview with The Post that he saw four people trying to grab guns from guards and fight back when they were beaten, but they were eventually shot.
Witnesses say "Crouching Tiger Villa" is one of the most brutally managed fraud compounds. According to a person who leads the fraud team there, lions, tigers and bears are used to threaten those who try to cross the line and escape.
The families also hire foreign security personnel to protect their interests. Alex Klisevits, a former Estonian naval officer, arrived in Kokang after responding to a job advertisement seeking close bodyguards for "Chinese businessmen". He was one of 11 such people. Klisevits said he was smuggled into Myanmar and soon realized he could not leave freely.
Klisewitz recalled that on his first day at work, he saw a man tied with iron chains being beaten unconscious. "When I saw how they punished people... I thought, 'Where am I?'" he said.
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The CCP began to crack down on Kokang telecom fraud under pressure
By 2023, Beijing was facing increasing domestic and international pressure to take action against telecom fraud activities in Kokang. A United Nations report last year estimated that more than 120,000 people were forced to work in telecom fraud in Myanmar. Aid organizations say this is a conservative estimate.
According to the U.S. State Department's Office of Monitoring and Combating Trafficking in Persons, people trafficked to work in fraud centers in the Kokang region come from at least 35 countries, including the United States, Uganda and Brazil, but most are from China.
Kokang telecom fraud has become a public issue in China, so much so that one of the highest-grossing Hong Kong movies in China last year, "No More Bets," tells the story of a Chinese software engineer who was trafficked to a place in northern Myanmar that closely resembles Kokang, where he was forced to work as a fraudster.
Last August, the Chinese ambassador warned Myanmar authorities to “eradicate the poison of gambling and fraud,” saying it was “deeply hated by the Chinese people.” This marked the first time the CCP publicly signaled a crackdown on Kokang fraud.
Fraud compounds in Laos and Cambodia have been raided by local police, accompanied by Chinese police. In Myanmar, the Kokang clans have vowed to carry out their own crackdown, claiming they would never tolerate such criminal activity in their area. United Nations officials and researchers say the subsequent raids and arrests were performative and part of the “anti-China” movement.
Xu Peng, a doctoral student at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London, who has conducted extensive research on the China-Myanmar border region, told The Post: "China did send a lot of signals to the Myanmar military in advance. (Min Aung Hlaing) either didn't understand the signals or was unwilling to suppress them because of his personal history. He believed that Kokang was the beginning of his rise."
The trapped fraud practitioners began to hear that China wanted them to go home, so they tried to escape more and more. On October 20 last year, at Crouching Tiger Villa, guards opened fire when more than a hundred people tried to escape. The Post said it was unable to verify how many people died at the time, but according to Kokang resident Sammy Chen, four plainclothes CCP police officers were killed at the time. Sammy Chen is also an independent consultant who has worked with dozens of families in China and Thailand to help their loved ones escape from the Kokang fraud compound.
The killing of the four plainclothes CCP officers at Crouching Tiger Villa became a key turning point in the CCP's crackdown on Kokang's fraud activities.
Then in November, confession videos featuring key members of the Wei, Liu, and Ming families began to appear in Chinese media. Their confession statements were almost identical. Two of the key members of the Ming family were arrested by Myanmar police and handed over to the Chinese authorities. Ming family patriarch Ming Xuechang died "by suicide with his own pistol" during a Myanmar police raid, according to Myanmar National Television.
Wei Qingtao, 27, the son of Wei Chaoren, the patriarch of the Wei family, had previously lived a lavish life in Kokang: driving Bentleys and Lamborghinis, smoking rare cigars, flying in private jets, throwing banknotes into the crowd at nightclub parties, not to mention wearing custom suits every day. In the "confession video," he appeared in prison clothes and read his confession verbatim, saying, "The money we made from online fraud came from the pensions of ordinary Chinese people. This time, the Chinese (Communist) government has made up its mind... We can no longer have any illusions."
In December last year, the CCP issued more than a dozen arrest warrants for the patriarchs and other family members of the Bai, Wei, and Liu families.
Wei Qingtao’s uncle was also quickly arrested by the Burmese authorities and handcuffed onto a plane to China, flanked by dozens of police.
The Chinese Communist Party media reported extensively on the crimes and detentions of Wei Qingtao and at least 15 other major family members and their associates, demonstrating Beijing’s influence.
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Peng Jiasheng’s son led his troops to take the opportunity to counterattack Kokang and Myanmar
Inspired by Beijing’s crackdown on the Kokang criminal family, Peng Jiasheng’s National Democratic Alliance Army, now led by his son Peng Deren, formed a “three-brother alliance” with two other ethnic armed groups. They began to counterattack Kokang in response to Beijing’s crackdown and attacked the military government’s territory across Myanmar. The slogan of the National Democratic Alliance is: “Eliminate the liars and save our compatriots.”
On 6 January 2024, the Kokang capital Laogai was captured by the National Democratic Alliance Army. This was the first time in 15 years that Myanmar had completely returned control of the Kokang region to the rebel group. This was also the most serious loss of territory for the Myanmar army since its independence.
But analysts say Peng Deren and the "Three Brothers Alliance" victory would not have been possible without the explicit or tacit support of the Chinese Communist Party.
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Myanmar criminal networks are still active and difficult to eradicate
Since the Chinese Communist Party cracked down on Kokang fraud, the Myanmar military has cooperated with the Chinese Communist Party to repatriate foreigners from Kokang. According to the Myanmar Ministry of Public Security, 49,000 fraudsters have been repatriated to China since July last year.
Myanmar officials say several senior members of several major Kokang families now face fraud and other possible charges in China, with a maximum sentence of life in prison, but more family members have escaped.
Casinos and hotels owned by Kokang crime families still exist, but they are empty. The same is true for "Crouching Tiger Villa", its walls are crumbling and riddled with bullet holes.
Criminal groups appear to be leaving Kokang, but these criminal networks have proved difficult to eradicate. According to an analysis of the Kokang family's cryptocurrency wallets by blockchain analysis firm Chainaanalysis and an on-site visit by investigators to the Kokang family's office in Yangon, Myanmar's commercial capital, subsidiaries and businesses associated with the Kokang family remain intact.
For example, Chainaanalysis found that as of April this year, the Liu family's "Fulilai Group" and its subsidiaries - including online casino operator "Warner International" - were still transferring millions of dollars through cryptocurrency wallets.
"These criminal organizations are too complex to be eliminated by a single action," Xue Yin Peh, a senior intelligence analyst at Chainaanalysis, told the Post.
The preferred cryptocurrency of the Kokang criminal group is "Tether", the world's largest and most widely adopted stablecoin, whose value is pegged to the US dollar, said Douglas of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. Douglas said that subsidiaries of the Fulilai Group, such as the Gobo East casino in Cambodia, are still transacting in Tether.
“Key parts of these empires remain operational,” he said.
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Internet fraud spreads to South Africa and Georgia
Fraud run by other criminal groups — rivals of the families — continues to grow in other parts of Myanmar and Southeast Asia.
Internet fraud — many of it carried out by other Chinese gangs — continues to expand to other parts of the world, particularly Cambodia and Laos, but also as far away as Dubai, South Africa and even Georgia, according to U.N. researchers and anti-trafficking aid groups.
“What began as a regional crime threat in Southeast Asia has become a global trafficking crisis with millions of victims at the center and in the target population,” Interpol Secretary General Jürgen Stock said in March.
China helped create “a ‘Frankenstein’ monster that it now cannot control,” said Tal of the U.S. Institute of Peace.
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The army is unstable? Xi Jinping mentioned "political army building" again in Yan'an
The CCP will hold the Third Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee in July. Party leader Xi Jinping suddenly went to Yan'an, the so-called "revolutionary holy land" of the CCP, and held a political work meeting of the Central Military Commission, emphasizing the need to adhere to the "political army building strategy in the new era". Please see the report.
From 17 to 19 June 2024, the CCP held a political work meeting of the Central Military Commission, and the content mainly revolved around how to promote "political army building" and other issues.
At the meeting, Xi Jinping said that the current world situation, national situation, party situation, and military situation are all undergoing complex and profound changes, and it is necessary to "unremittingly promote political army building." He also said that the CCP army has "deep-rooted problems" in politics, ideology, organization, style, and discipline.
The venue for this meeting was set in Yan'an, Shaanxi. This is the first time the CCP has held such a meeting in ten years. The last meeting was held in Gutian, Fujian. The Chinese Communist Party media said that both meetings were "decided and convened by Xi Jinping himself", and both meetings emphasized that "political work" will always be the lifeline of the Chinese Communist Party's military. This time is "another tracing back to the roots".
Wang Juntao, Chairman of the National Committee of the China Democratic Party, believes that this is Xi Jinping's intention to take the Chinese Communist Party's political cadres to review the so-called "revolutionary tradition" and return to Mao Zedong's set.
Wang Juntao, Chairman of the National Committee of the China Democratic Party: "In 2014 in Gutian, at that meeting he proposed a strategy for governing the army, that is, to build the army politically, and that the party should lead everything, and that ideological work is the lifeline, etc. These are all things that Mao Zedong did when he built the army. Gutian is the starting point of Mao Zedong's political thinking on building the army, and Yan'an is a time of great development. He now needs to go further and deepen how to continue to rebuild this work tradition of the army, so let's go backwards!"
Yu Ping, an independent commentator and legal expert, believes that this meeting is to prepare for the upcoming Third Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee, and control of the army is the top priority.
Independent commentator and legal expert Yu Ping: "In fact, the military has had many problems in recent years, including the removal of Defense Minister Li Shangfu last year, and almost all the high-ranking officials of the Rocket Force have been replaced. This shows that there are actually very big problems with loyalty in the military. It is not just that the military is not disciplined or corrupt. I think the more important thing is its political security. The military has become a very prominent problem."
Yu Ping pointed out that Xi Jinping's emphasis on building the military politically also shows that the CCP's military is unstable now.
Yu Ping: "Xi Jinping has repeatedly controlled the military in the past 11 or 12 years. Now it is definitely unstable. So he wants to control the military in his own hands. As for how he will use the military in the future, whether he will use it to attack Taiwan, whether he will use it to confront the West, or what actions he will take in the South China Sea, that is not something that can be explained through a meeting like his current military construction strategy. Even if he does not attack Taiwan, he will still have strong control over the military and use the so-called party-command-gun strategy of the Communist Party to seize all the resources and power of the entire country in his own hands."
The CCP's comprehensive purge of the military in the name of anti-corruption reached its peak last year. So far, at least nine Chinese military generals and four senior executives of the aerospace and defense industries have been deprived of their qualifications as NPC deputies, and several senior executives of the defense industry have been removed from the CPPCC.
These have caused serious setbacks to Xi Jinping's so-called plan to strengthen the military.
This time, Xi Jinping proposed six key tasks to promote political military construction, including strengthening ideological transformation and eradicating the soil for corruption. He also warned that "there must be no place for corrupt elements to hide in the military."
However, the outside world believes that the CCP's corruption problem is fundamentally unsolvable.
Wang Juntao: "The so-called political military construction was actually very corrupt after the Mao Zedong era. Of course, this thing began to become more corrupt during the Jiang Zemin era. If the army is not nationalized, of course he will continue to maintain the past political control of the party over the army. Cadres are actually based on political quality assessments, rather than military and professional quality assessments. This has led to corruption unique to the Chinese military, including military business, etc."
Wang Juntao said that absolute power itself will lead to corruption, and Xi Jinping has used a more centralized approach to rectify corruption after taking office, so this anti-corruption campaign is doomed to fail in the future.
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Chinese people take a different route and the Japanese Consulate in China is forced to tighten visas
Ecuador suspends visa exemption for Chinese citizens, removing a springboard for "taking a route" to the United States. Not long ago, the Japanese Consulate in China also tightened visas to Japan, reportedly because several tour groups disappeared collectively and went to the United States via Mexico.
In June this year, it was reported online that many Chinese tourists who traveled to Japan on their own were repatriated by Japanese airports. Many netizens believed that it was because the Chinese Internet celebrity "Iron Head" urinated and graffitied at the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo. On 13 June 2024, the Internet reported that the Consulate General of Japan in Guangzhou rejected 11 Chinese travel agencies' visa applications to Japan. It is said that there are other reasons for this.
Image : The Consulate General of Japan in Guangzhou rejected 11 Chinese travel agencies' visa applications to Japan. (Internet photo)
An informed netizen revealed that the visa application procedures for Chinese tourist groups to Japan were "simplified" in the past, but in the past two months, more than a dozen tourist groups "ran away" after arriving in Japan, and "two more groups ran away in early June." Japan was forced to tighten visas and "strictly check all information."
Image : It was reported online that multiple tourist groups to Japan "ran away" collectively. (Webpage screenshot)
Netizens speculated on the purpose of these Chinese "tourists" to "run away" to Japan. Some said it might be "working illegally in Japan" and some thought they might be "scattering all over the world."
However, on the overseas X platform, many netizens revealed that the real purpose of these people is to "go to the United States": "Rely on travel agencies to get Japanese tourist visas, travel with the group according to the itinerary after entering Japan, and leave the group and hide before returning home. Relying on the Japanese tourist visa, they can enter Mexico visa-free, avoid the dangerous tropical rainforest section, and quickly cross the hurdle to enter the United States."
Netizens mentioned that women from Shanghai and Shaanxi had shared online that they arrived in the United States with their children in this way.
Before this, the main transit country for Chinese "going through the route" was Ecuador, which is visa-free for Chinese citizens. After arriving in Ecuador by plane, these Chinese need to cross multiple countries to arrive in Mexico, and then cross the U.S.-Mexico border to enter the United States but these routes are difficult and dangerous, requiring walking through the tropical rainforest or taking a boat through the sea with strong winds and waves, and many Chinese have unfortunately died.
According to official Mexican regulations, foreigners holding multiple-entry visas to Japan can enter Mexico visa-free and stay for less than 180 days.
On the "US Card Forum", a Chinese netizen posted a question asking whether he had a Japanese visa but had never used it, whether he could enter Mexico visa-free. Netizens gave various answers. Some said, "According to regulations, it must have been used, and there must be a record of entry into Japan on the passport." Others said: "There is no problem. When I used it, the Mexican customs only looked at the visa and did not look at the entry sticker." Others said: "There are channels that guarantee it."
Many netizens mentioned that entering Mexico with a Japanese visa is a "Japanese visa + Mexico northbound route" commonly used by Chinese "walking party". One netizen even shared a successful experience: With a Chinese East China household registration and a bank deposit of 100,000, you can apply for a three-year multiple-entry visa to Okinawa or the three prefectures of Northeast Japan, and then fly to Mexico to enter the United States. It is feasible.
On 20 June 2024, a person who had assisted Chinese people in "walking the line" told the Central News Agency that since 2020, the "walking line" methods of Chinese people with the United States as their destination are actually divided into several methods and paths. Taking a long and adventurous journey from Ecuador is considered a low-end method.
The plan without going through Ecuador is to first obtain a visa that allows multiple entries and exits to "a certain Asian country", and then use it to fly directly to Mexico for visa-free entry, eliminating the danger of adventurous trekking but this scheme is in a gray area, has legal risks, and is not cheap. Last year, it cost $20,000, and it has risen to $25,000 in April and May this year.
Ecuador recently announced that it would suspend visa exemption for Chinese in July. This person predicts that the number of Chinese people who choose to "go the route" through "a certain Asian country" will increase significantly, and the cost will rise sharply but it is unknown how long this route can last.
He also mentioned that after Ecuador suspended visa exemption for China, the only non-island country in Latin America that has visa exemption is Suriname but it is much farther from Suriname to the United States than Ecuador, and there are more jungles and swamps to pass through, including Guyana and Venezuela, which are in dangerous situations. Therefore, the more affordable "going the route" method may be suspended for a while.
This person lamented that if it were not for the domestic situation in China, who would go around half the world and take the risk of "going the route" from Latin America to the United States? With the "hardworking and brave" Chinese people, the possibility of changing to "going the route" from Suriname cannot be completely ruled out.
At the same time, with the Chinese people's "intelligence and wisdom", it is entirely possible to come up with a path that the outside world would not expect.
