Chinese documentary says actor Wang Xing was sold three times during Myanmar trafficking ordeal

Chinese actor Wang Xing was sold three times in four days after being trafficked from Thailand into Myanmar in 2025, according to a Chinese state documentary described by CNA on October 8. The newly reported account adds detail to a case that drew attention across China and Thailand and prompted families of other missing people to seek help.

CNA says the three-part documentary, The Demise of Telecom Fraud in Northern Myanmar, aired on state broadcaster CCTV from October 5 to October 7. China’s Ministry of Public Security and China Media Group produced it jointly. The documentary itself was not available for this account, so the new details of Wang’s journey and the three sales rest on CNA’s description of it.

How a false acting offer led Wang Xing toward Myanmar

The documentary account reported by CNA begins with a casting advertisement Wang saw in a WeChat group in late 2024. A user calling himself ‘Yan Shiliu’ claimed to be an assistant director looking for actors. Wang sent an audition video and was quickly told he had been selected. The purported recruiter arranged a return flight from Shanghai to Bangkok and accommodation, details that made the supposed production appear credible.

CNA dates Wang’s arrival at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport to January 2, 2025. A driver collected him, but Wang was told his accommodation had changed. Instead of going to a booked hotel in Phuket, he was driven north toward Mae Sot, near the Myanmar border. After changing vehicles near a supermarket, Wang suspected danger and sent his girlfriend the message ‘Have you fed the cat?’ CNA says the couple had agreed to use that question as a distress signal and that she soon reported him missing.

What Thai police established after Wang’s rescue

Contemporaneous Associated Press reporting, republished by CNA, said authorities found Wang in Myanmar and brought him to Thailand on January 7, 2025. Thai police identified him as a trafficking victim the following day. Senior Inspector General Thatchai Pitaneelaboot said a promised casting job had instead led Wang to Myanmar and what police believed was a call-scam operation targeting Chinese people. Thatchai told Thai PBS that an initial examination of Wang’s phone chats supported his account.

Families sought answers after the case drew attention

Reuters reported later that month that Wang’s girlfriend had publicised his disappearance online, attracting millions of followers and support from Chinese celebrities. After his release, other families compiled nearly 1,800 names of Chinese nationals they said had been trafficked into Myanmar. Reuters interviewed relatives of four people on the list; they withheld their full names because they feared angering authorities and slowing efforts to bring their relatives home.

The family list was an appeal for help, not a verified count of people still held. Reuters said about 93 percent of those listed in the ‘Star Homecoming’ campaign were male, with an average age of 27. Mina Chiang, founder of Humanity Research Consultancy, told Reuters: ‘It’s difficult to get a confirmed number of Chinese people trafficked to scam compounds.’ The list cannot establish the current whereabouts of those named or the present scale of trafficking.

What the documentary says about China’s earlier efforts

Beyond Wang’s case, CNA says the documentary describes three unsuccessful attempts by Chinese authorities to persuade powerful crime families in northern Myanmar to stop scam operations before a crackdown in 2023. That account is another disclosure attributed to the documentary through CNA. The available historical reporting does not independently confirm those approaches, and the new report does not establish a current rescue operation or a timetable for further enforcement.