US charges Cambodian executive in massive crypto scam and seizes more than $14 billion in bitcoin
NEW YORK (AP) — According to Associated Press, the U.S. government has seized more than $14 billion in bitcoin and charged the founder of a Cambodian conglomerate in a massive cryptocurrency scam, accusing him and unnamed co-conspirators of exploiting forced labor to dupe would-be investors and using proceeds to purchase luxury yachts, private jets and a Pablo Picasso painting.
In an indictment unsealed Tuesday, federal prosecutors in Brooklyn charged Prince Holding Group chairman Chen Zhi with wire fraud conspiracy and money laundering conspiracy. At the same time, U.S. and British authorities imposed sanctions on Chen’s company, which is involved in real estate development, financial services and other businesses, and the Treasury Department declared it a transnational criminal organization.
Chen, 38, is accused of sanctioning brutal violence against workers, authorizing hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes to foreign officials and using his other businesses, such as online gambling and cryptocurrency mining operations, to launder illicit profits.
Chen was the “mastermind behind a sprawling cyber-fraud empire,” Assistant Attorney General John Eisenberg said. U.S. Attorney Joseph Nocella called it “one of the largest investment fraud operations in history.”
Last year, Americans lost at least $10 billion to Southeast Asia-based scams, a 66% increase from 2023, the Treasury Department said, calling Prince a “dominant player” in that space. Chinese authorities have been investigating the company since as early as 2020, according to court records reviewed by the U.S. Institute of Peace.
A spokesperson for the Cambodian government, Pen Bona, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
J. Daniel Sims, a transnational crime expert at Harvard University’s Asia Center, said that Prince is “an essential part of the scaffolding that makes global cyber-scamming possible,” and Chen is a “central pillar” of the criminal economy intertwined with Cambodia’s ruling regime.
Chen has served as an adviser to Prime Minister Hun Manet and his father, former prime minister Hun Sen, and was honored with the title “neak oknha” — equivalent to an English lord.
“While the indictment and sanctions don’t instantly dismantle these networks, they fundamentally change the risk calculus,” Sims said.
According to the indictment, Prince built at least 10 compounds in Cambodia where workers — often migrants held against their will — were forced to contact thousands of victims through social media or online messaging platforms, build rapport and entice them to transfer cryptocurrency with hopes of big investment returns.
In reality, prosecutors said, it was a swindle. The money was stolen, funneled into other Prince businesses and shell companies and used to pay for things like luxury travel and entertainment, watches, vacation homes, high-end collectables, rare artwork and even a Rolex watch for an executive’s spouse, prosecutors said.
The compounds functioned as forced labor camps, with dormitories surrounded by high walls and barbed wire fences, and automated call centers where hundreds of mobile phones controlling tens of thousands of fake social media profiles were lined up on racks, prosecutors said. One compound was associated with Prince’s Jinbei Casino Hotel. Another was known as “Golden Fortune.”
According to the Treasury Department’s sanctions statement, workers at the compounds were held captive, isolated and sometimes beaten after being lured with the promise of high-paying jobs in fields such as customer service or tech support.
Photographs included in Chen’s indictment showed one man with a bloody gash on his face, dozens of men on the ground with their hands bound, and a man with red lash marks on his chest and arms.
Chen personally approved of at least one beating, of a man believed to be causing trouble at a compound, but cautioned that he not be “beaten to death.” People living near Golden Fortune reported seeing escaped workers “beaten until they are barely alive,” the Treasury Department said.
In 2023, the United Nations estimated around 100,000 people were being forced to carry out online scams in Cambodia, as well as at least 120,000 in Myanmar and tens of thousands in Thailand, Laos and the Philippines.
“These actions won’t end the scam economy overnight,” said Sims, the transnational crime expert. “But they shrink its oxygen supply and send a rare message to regimes like Cambodia’s that elite crime as a ruling strategy is a double-edged sword.”
