Myanmar junta chief’s family used privileged status to secure ‘special number’ passports

Myanmar junta chief Min Aung Hlaing and his family appear to have used the privileges of military power to secure passports bearing carefully selected “special numbers,” reflecting a wider fixation with distinctive numbers among the country’s military elite, documents obtained by Myanmar Now show. The records include passport pages and delegation lists containing passport numbers and personal details for Min Aung Hlaing, his wife, and their children and grandchildren, as well as other members of military delegations. Among them are MD-555555, issued to his daughter Khin Thiri Thet Mon; MC-212222, issued to his son Aung Pyae Sone; and ME-253333, ME-379999 and MD-755555, issued to three of his granddaughters. Min Aung Hlaing himself held passport DM-003939, while his wife Kyu Kyu Hla held DM-004656. The distinctive passports were issued while Min Aung Hlaing was commander-in-chief of Myanmar’s armed forces. Under the 2008 Constitution, the commander-in-chief nominated the serving military officers appointed to head the ministries of Home Affairs, Defence, and Border Affairs. The passport office was under the Ministry of Home Affairs (MOHA). Within that system, the police Special Branch—also under MOHA control—plays a key role in scrutinising passport applicants. The branch is also part of the security apparatus that the military has used to monitor, investigate, and pursue opponents and critics. That role makes the apparent preferential treatment particularly significant. Ordinary citizens seeking passports can be subjected to scrutiny by a security agency operating under the same military-controlled ministry that issued passports to Min Aung Hlaing’s family bearing unusually distinctive numbers. Their passport copies obtained by Myanmar Now explicitly identify its issuing authority as “MOHA, YANGON.” Myanmar Now sought comment from the junta-controlled Ministry of Immigration and Population on how the distinctive passport numbers were issued and whether members of Min Aung Hlaing’s family were allowed to select them. The ministry did not respond. Six fives—and a family pattern The clearest example is Min Aung Hlaing’s daughter, Khin Thiri Thet Mon. A copy of her passport obtained by Myanmar Now shows the number MD-555555—six consecutive fives. The passport records her date of birth as December 5, 1981, her birthplace as Yangon, and its issuing authority as MOHA, YANGON. It was issued on September 14, 2018, and expired on September 13, 2023. The sequence is particularly striking given that she was born on the fifth day of the month. Khin Thiri Thet Mon is also subject to international sanctions. The United States sanctioned her and her brother Aung Pyae Sone in March 2021, saying their business holdings had “directly benefited” from their father’s position and influence. Min Aung Hlaing is also subject to international sanctions. Khin Thiri Thet Mon’s two daughters, both granddaughters of Min Aung Hlaing, were also issued passports with conspicuous repeated-digit numbers. The sisters were previously known as Akari Lin Thet Hlaing and May Barani Lin Thet Hlaing. Following the divorce of their parents, Khin Thiri Thet Mon and Lin Myint Hpwe, they changed their names to Akari Thet Mon Hlaing and May Barani Thet Mon Hlaing, respectively. Khin Thiri Thet Mon, daughter of Myanmar junta leader Min Aung Hlaing, holds a passport containing six instances of the number “5” (Photo: Myanmar Now) Akari Thet Mon Hlaing is listed in the records with passport ME-253333, ending in four consecutive threes, while May Barani Thet Mon Hlaing held ME-379999, ending in four consecutive nines. The pattern extends to Min Aung Hlaing’s son, Aung Pyae Sone, who held passport MC-212222, ending in four consecutive twos. Aung Pyae Sone is a businessman as well as a sanctioned individual. When the US Treasury designated him and his sister in March 2021, it said their business holdings had benefited from their father’s position and influence. One of Aung Pyae Sone’s daughters, Khin Nyein Chan Pyae Sone Hlaing, held passport MD-755555, containing five consecutive fives. His other daughter, Khin Bhone Myat Pyae Sone Hlaing, held the less conspicuous passport number MC-129230. Records relating to Aung Pyae Sone’s wife, Myo Yadana Htaik, also contain a passport with another conspicuous sequence of repeated fives. The Min Aung Hlaing family’s passports fit a broader preference for distinctive numbers among Myanmar’s military elite. Generals and their relatives have long sought memorable or supposedly auspicious numbers for vehicle licence plates, phone numbers, and other possessions. Such combinations can serve as status symbols precisely because ordinary citizens have little or no ability to obtain them. The practice has precedents among Myanmar’s former ruling circles. Dictator Ne Win was famously associated with numerology, particularly the number nine. His grandsons were known for using vehicles with licence plates featuring nines, repeated digits, or combinations whose digits added up to nine. The preference for such numbers may appear trivial compared with the sweeping powers wielded by Myanmar’s generals. But for Min Aung Hlaing’s family, the repeated appearance of carefully patterned numbers suggests that even something as mundane as a passport number could be made special—another distinction reserved for those with access to power.

Myanmar junta chief’s family used privileged status to secure ‘special number’ passports

Passport records offer a rare glimpse into how power and privilege extend to the family of Myanmar junta chief Min Aung Hlaing

Subscribe for full access

Myanmar charity worker who built a lifeline for the poor loses it all after military coup

Fear grips Mandalay as junta-backed militias and kidnappers prey on residents

For Myanmar migrants in Thailand, hope is a 100-baht lottery ticket

‘Will it be different this time, Grandson?’

Subscribe for full access

Related Articles

At least two killed in blast in Myanmar’s Rakhine state capital

Nighttime junta airstrike kills 2 and injures 6 in Pauktaw Township

Suu Kyi speaks to son for first time in more than five years

Six women killed by Myanmar junta airstrike in Budalin