The Elusive Crime Boss Linked to Billion-Dollar 'Pig Butchering' Scams

Broken Tooth's Case Shows How a Fragmented Global Response to Cyber Scams Allows Suspects to Roam Free

- Feliz Solomon & Clarence Leong

Earlier this year, a video surfaced online showing a man identified as the Chinese businessman and reputed mafia boss Wan Kuok-koi giving a thumbs-up and smiling while flying a paraglider over limestone crags in central Laos.

Law-enforcement officials around the world say Wan—better known by the nickname Broken Tooth, which he received after a motorcycle crash as a teenager in Macau—has played a central role in the emergence of a virulent new form of cyber fraud known as "pig butchering."

In pig butchering schemes, scammers meet people online, win their trust and persuade them to pour money into bogus investments. U.S. officials say the scams are costing Americans billions of dollars a year. Yet no one seems to be trying very hard to get Broken Tooth. He keeps popping up on social media traveling around Asia. In one video that appeared on Chinese social media, Telegram and Chinese news websites this year, he was seen stepping off a plane in Laos wearing a T-shirt with the logo of Russia's paramilitary Wagner Group, meeting another alleged Chinese crime boss.

The case of Broken Tooth—who served about 14 years in a Macau prison after he was convicted of participating in organized crime, money laundering and other crimes before his release in 2012—shows how a fragmented global response to cyber scams allows suspects to roam free as pig butchering spreads.

The U.S. Treasury Department imposed sanctions on Broken Tooth in 2020 for corruption. The Treasury Department also designated three entities it said were owned or controlled by Broken Tooth, including a company called Dongmei Group, which was behind a development called Dongmei Zone in Myanmar. The site later became known as one of the earliest scam compounds.

Washington also said he owned or controlled the World Hongmen History and Culture Association, which U.S. authorities describe as a criminal network inspired by Chinese secret societies that has a presence at Dongmei.