Cambodia arrested and extradited to China the tycoon Chen Zhi after Chinese authorities requested the handover, the Cambodian Interior Ministry said Wednesday.
The ministry said Chen Zhi, chairman of Prince Holding Group, and two other Chinese citizens were arrested and extradited Tuesday. It also said Chen Zhi previously had dual nationality but that his Cambodian citizenship was revoked in December.
Cambodia named the two other Chinese citizens as Xu Ji Liang and Shao Ji Hui.
In the United States, prosecutors charged Chen Zhi in October with conspiracy counts alleging he masterminded a multinational cyberfraud network. The indictment alleges that he used other businesses to launder profits and sanctioned violence against workers, and it said the Prince Group had boasted of getting $30 million a day from scams.
The case has prompted international measures, with the U.S. Treasury Department and the U.K. Foreign Office imposing sanctions on Chen Zhi and companies linked to him, including entities tied to real estate development and financial services. The report said authorities seized assets including properties worth at least $100 million and $14 billion in cryptocurrency.
U.S. prosecutors also alleged that Chen’s organization scammed 250 Americans out of millions of dollars, including one victim who lost $400,000 in cryptocurrency. The report said that in 2024, Americans lost at least $10 billion to Southeast Asia-based scams, according to the U.S. Treasury Department.
Britain has taken additional steps, the report said, freezing Chen Zhi’s British businesses and assets, including a 12 million-euro mansion and a 100-million-euro office building in London. Other countries followed, the report said, with Singapore launching an investigation on Oct. 30 after announcing the seizure of financial assets worth more than $150 million Singaporean dollars and a yacht, and with Taiwan police seizing 26 luxury cars including a Ferrari, Bugatti and a Porsche. The report also said Hong Kong police seized financial assets and that all three authorities launched investigations into Chen.
Chen denied wrongdoing through lawyers in November, saying in a statement: “the Prince Group categorically rejects the notion that it or its Chairman has engaged in any unlawful activity.” The Cambodian government response was muted, the report said, with a statement saying Cambodia does not protect lawbreakers but that it is not accusing Chen or the Prince group of wrongdoing.
There was no immediate comment from federal prosecutors in Brooklyn where Chen had been indicted, the report said. Chinese authorities had no immediate comment on the extradition of Chen and the two other individuals named by Cambodia’s Interior Ministry.
The allegations come amid a broader crackdown on scam compounds across Southeast Asia. The report said cybercrime has flourished where law enforcement is weak, with operations recruiting foreign nationals with false job offers and then forcing them to work in conditions described as near-slavery. It said Chen’s U.S. indictment alleges Prince Holding Group built at least 10 compounds in Cambodia, naming three — Golden Fortune, Jinbei and Mango Park.
International efforts have increased in recent years, the report said, including Beijing pressuring Myanmar to crack down in mid-2023 and some kingpins being extradited to be tried in China. The report said Beijing has continued to exert pressure in the region, working with Thailand and Myanmar to release nearly 10,000 people from scam compounds along the Thai and Myanmar border, while Cambodia also conducted a campaign in the summer to arrest thousands from various scam centers.
The report cited a 2023 U.N. human rights office estimate that at least 120,000 people across Myanmar and 100,000 people in Cambodia may have been held in situations where they were forced to work on online scams, and said experts say such operations continue.
A transnational crime expert said the decision to extradite reflects the pressure build-up. Jacob Daniel Sims, a visiting fellow at Harvard University’s Asia Center, said the Cambodian government had faced sustained international pressure so that inaction was no longer an option, and that handing Chen Zhi to China was “the path of least resistance,” defusing Western scrutiny while aligning with Beijing’s likely preference to keep a politically sensitive case out of U.S. and U.K. courts.
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