Myanmar’s military-backed parliament has approved a tough new law that makes the death penalty available for people who use violence or unlawful detention to force others into running online scam operations — and imposes life sentences for those who run crypto-related fraud.
Key points of the law
- The draft published in May stipulated that “the death penalty shall be imposed” when coercion or unlawful detention used to force victims into scam operations results in the victim’s death.
- The same draft set a maximum penalty of life imprisonment for anyone who operates an online scam center or commits “digital currency scams (crypto scams),” with coercion offenses carrying terms from 10 years to life.
- A lower-house MP, Aye Chan, told AFP the death-penalty provision survived into the final approved text and that “the important parts of the bill remained the same.” The full text has not yet been released.
Political and legal context
- This is the first law passed by the government of Min Aung Hlaing, the general who led the 2021 coup and formally became civilian president in April. Under Myanmar’s constitution, a quarter of parliamentary seats — 166 — are reserved for the military; the USDP won 339 of the remaining seats in phased elections that Aung San Suu Kyi’s dissolved party could not contest.
- Myanmar resumed judicial executions in 2022, hanging four activists — the first state executions since 1976. In April, days after taking office, Min Aung Hlaing commuted every existing death sentence in the country to life imprisonment. Three months later, parliament has legislated new capital punishments tied to scam-related violence.
Regional crypto-crime backdrop
- International authorities have increasingly linked Southeast Asian compounds and militias to transnational cyber-scam networks. In May 2025 the U.S. Treasury designated the Karen National Army (formerly the Karen Border Guard Force) as a transnational criminal organization, saying its territory on the Thai border “is home to multiple cyber scam syndicates” and that it “has benefitted from its connection to Burma’s military.” The KNA denies involvement.
- The UN Office on Drugs and Crime estimates scam operations across East Asia, Southeast Asia and Oceania produced between $88.3 billion and $114.1 billion in losses in 2025, with people from at least 80 countries found inside scam compounds. The UNODC has warned that police in the region still struggle to trace scam proceeds on-chain.
- Regional responses include Cambodia advancing its own bill that would impose life terms for compound bosses. U.S. prosecutors this month seized about $25 million in crypto tied to scams routed through the region.
What it means for crypto and enforcement
The new Myanmar law explicitly names “digital currency scams” among the offenses that can trigger life imprisonment, and it creates the harshest penalties where coercion leads to death. But the move highlights a broader enforcement problem: even as governments legislate tougher sentences and carry out asset seizures, tracing and recovering crypto-linked proceeds across borders remains technically and legally difficult — a challenge UN agencies and prosecutors continue to flag.
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