The Dark Money Behind Myanmar’s Civil War
Five years after Myanmar’s military seized power in a 2021 coup, the country remains locked in a brutal, multifaceted civil war. More than 100,000 people have been killed, millions displaced, and vast stretches of territory contested by the junta and dozens of resistance and ethnic armed groups. Yet the fighting is not only about democracy, ethnicity, or political control. It is also about money—specifically the vast flows of illicit and semi-licit revenue that make prolonged conflict more profitable for many combatants than peace.
Myanmar ranks among the world’s most resource-rich nations. It holds significant deposits of natural gas, copper, tin, coal, teak, gold, gemstones, and rare earth elements critical to electric vehicles and renewable energy. Control of these assets, along with border trade corridors and criminal enterprises, has turned the war into a self-sustaining economy of extraction and predation.
Gems, Jade, Gold, and Rare Earths
In the ruby-rich hills of Mogok, the Ta’ang National Liberation Army seized the area in 2024 and quickly imposed itself on the mining economy. It granted concessions to Chinese operators, charged diggers for the right to work plots, and took a share of the stones. Similar dynamics play out in the jade mines of Hpakant, long controlled or contested by the Kachin Independence Army and other groups. Jade once generated estimates as high as $31 billion in a single year of production value; even a fraction of that trade funds weapons, salaries, and patronage networks.
Rare earth mining has expanded rapidly near the Chinese border, often in territory held by ethnic armed organizations. These minerals feed global supply chains, particularly China’s. Armed groups tax extraction, transport, and sales. Gold and timber follow the same pattern: whoever holds the ground collects fees, protection money, or direct shares. The result is a patchwork of warlord-style resource fiefdoms in which battlefield gains translate almost immediately into cash flow.
The Scam Economy: Billions in Dark Money
The single largest revenue stream is cyber scams. Compounds along the Thai border and in other border regions—places like Shwe Kokko and KK Park—house tens of thousands of workers, many trafficked and held under threat of violence. These operations run “pig butchering” investment and romance scams that target victims worldwide, including in China, the United States, and elsewhere. Estimates put annual revenues above $15 billion.
Both junta-aligned militias and some resistance-linked groups have taxed or protected these operations. Geolocation data has even linked device movements between scam compounds and government buildings in the capital, Naypyidaw. After Chinese pressure forced partial crackdowns on the largest centers, the industry dispersed and adapted rather than disappeared. Scam revenue has become a critical lifeline for actors short of conventional funding, especially under international sanctions.
Methamphetamine production and opium cultivation have also surged in the chaos. Myanmar overtook Afghanistan as the world’s top opium producer in recent years, while synthetic drugs flow outward across Southeast Asia and beyond. These trades further entrench the crime-conflict nexus.
Funding Both Sides of the War
The military junta relies on its long-standing business conglomerates, control of state enterprises such as the oil and gas company MOGE, forced bond purchases by private banks, and central bank financing of deficits. Sanctions have squeezed formal revenues, pushing greater dependence on resource extraction in held territories, aviation fuel and arms imports through opaque channels, and tolerance of (or participation in) illicit economies.
Resistance forces and ethnic armed organizations raise money through diaspora donations, crowdfunding, bonds and virtual asset sales, local taxation in controlled areas, and resource rents. Some People’s Defence Forces and allied groups have developed relatively organized systems of administration and fundraising; others lean more heavily on informal or illicit sources. Natural resource taxation and border trade fees provide steady income once territory is secured.
China sits at the center of many of these flows. It is the primary market for Myanmar’s jade and rare earths, maintains ties with both the junta and several border armed groups, and has intervened when scam centers began victimizing large numbers of Chinese citizens. Beijing’s priority appears to be border stability and access to resources rather than a decisive victory for either side. Russia and others have supplied military equipment that helps the junta maintain air superiority.
A War That Pays for Itself
The human cost is staggering. Civilians face airstrikes, village burnings, forced conscription, and displacement. Scam compounds hold workers in conditions resembling modern slavery. Ordinary Myanmar people see little benefit from the resource wealth extracted around them. Meanwhile, those with guns and access to mines, trade routes, or criminal enterprises continue to profit.
This is the core tragedy of Myanmar’s civil war: the political economy of conflict has become self-reinforcing. As long as gold, gems, rare earths, timber, drugs, and scam revenues flow to the combatants, the incentive to negotiate a lasting peace remains weak. The war the world largely forgot continues not only because of unresolved political grievances, but because for many of those fighting it, dark money makes the fighting pay.
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