The United States and the United Kingdom have announced sweeping sanctions against a Cambodia-based transnational crime network for running a chain of online scamming centers that have defrauded billions of dollars from people around the world.
In a statement on Tuesday, the U.S. Treasury Department announced sanctions on 146 individuals and entities connected to Cambodia’s Prince Holding Group, including its 38-year-old chairman Chen Zhi. It designated the group a “transnational criminal network,” alleging its involvement in cyberfraud, human trafficking, and money laundering.
The sanctions are part of what Treasury described as the “largest action ever” to disrupt Southeast Asia-based scamming operations, which are run predominantly by Chinese criminal syndicates and rely on a huge corps of trafficked workers from across the globe. According to U.S. government estimates, such scams cost U.S. citizens at least $10 billion in 2024.
In a parallel announcement, federal prosecutors in the U.S. also unsealed an indictment charging Chen, a Chinese-Cambodian tycoon who has served as advisor to both former Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen and his son and successor Hun Manet, with wire fraud and money laundering. As part of the case, prosecutors seized just under $15 billion in bitcoin, which the Justice Department described as its “largest ever forfeiture action.” Chen, who remains at large, faces up to 40 years in prison if convicted on the charges.
The U.K. simultaneously announced sanctions on six entities and individuals associated with the Prince Group. It also froze 19 London properties worth more than £100 million ($134 million) that it had connected to Prince, with a goal of “locking Chen and his network out of the U.K.’s financial system.” As part of the crackdown, Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) also cut off the Cambodia-based financial services conglomerate Huione Group from the U.S. financial system, alleging that it has “laundered proceeds of virtual currency scams and heists on behalf of malicious cyber actors.”
In a statement, Attorney General Pamela Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche described the action as “one of the most significant strikes ever against the global scourge of human trafficking and cyber-enabled financial fraud.”
“By dismantling a criminal empire built on forced labor and deception,” they added, “we are sending a clear message that the United States will use every tool at its disposal to defend victims, recover stolen assets, and bring to justice those who exploit the vulnerable for profit.”
A Rapid Ascent
The action spells a likely end to the meteoric rise of Prince Group and its enigmatic chairman, who in a little over a decade has risen from obscurity to the heights of the Cambodian business elite, establishing close connections to the country’s top leaders.
Since being granted Cambodian citizenship in 2014, Chen has reportedly become enmeshed in the patrimonial networks of the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP). In addition to serving as an advisor to Hun Sen and his son, he is the recipient of the neak oknha title, one of the country’s highest honorifics, which is granted to the ruling CPP’s most generous benefactors. Chen is also confirmed to have donated to CPP-linked charities, including the Cambodian Red Cross.
According to its website, Prince has investments “in real estate development, banking, finance, and consumer services” and is guided by values including “responsibility,” “respect,” and “generosity.” According to the Treasury Department, however, Prince’s sleek marketing materials conceal a “laundry list of transnational crimes.”
In the indictment unsealed on Tuesday, U.S. prosecutors put Chen at the center of the online scamming networks that have come to enmesh Southeast Asia since the COVID-19 pandemic. They accused him of “the construction, operation, and management of scam compounds reliant on human trafficking and modern-day slavery” and of authorizing bribes to foreign officials to protect his business interests. Assistant Attorney General John Eisenberg described Chen as the “mastermind behind a sprawling cyberfraud empire.”
Prosecutors further allege that Chen used “sophisticated cryptocurrency laundering techniques to obscure the source of fraudulent Prince Group profits.” This included “spraying” and “funnelling” techniques, in which “large volumes of cryptocurrency were repeatedly disaggregated across scores of virtual currency addresses and then re-consolidated into fewer addresses to obscure the source of the funds.”
According to the Justice Department, these ill-gotten proceeds were subsequently spent on luxury travel and entertainment, the purchase of watches, yachts, private jets, vacation homes, high-end collectibles, and rare artwork, including a Picasso painting that was purchased through an auction house in New York City.
Documented Links
The U.S. and U.K. actions follow a string of reports alleging Prince’s involvement in online scamming operations. Perhaps the most substantial of these was a three-part investigative report published by the U.S.-funded broadcaster Radio Free Asia (RFA) in early 2024. The report alleged that the Prince network was under investigation in China for criminal activities, including illegal gambling and money laundering. The investigation also found evidence of human trafficking, scams, and torture at a Prince-linked compound on the Cambodia-Vietnam border.
Shortly afterward, Jack Davies, the lead author of the report, told The Diplomat that Chen was one of a number of naturalized Chinese businesspeople who had become generous benefactors of the country’s ruling elite in recent years, as Cambodia-China relations had blossomed.
“Plenty of individuals like Chen have turned up in Phnom Penh with lots of cash and few explanations of where the money came from,” Davies said. “And they have been welcomed by the country’s political elites with wide open arms.”
Prince has consistently and strenuously denied reports linking it to online scamming operations, and has not hesitated to use its ample resources to attempt to silence critical reporting on its activities. In May, The Diplomat received a letter from lawyers acting for Prince, accusing the publication of “egregious defamation” and requesting the retraction of 10 articles mentioning Prince Group’s alleged involvement in cyber-scam operations. The Diplomat understands that it was not the only foreign media organization to have received such a threat from Prince’s lawyers.
“The Diplomat is very proud of the work its journalists and contributors have done in helping to bring attention to the activities of Prince Group,” said James Pach, the publisher of The Diplomat. “Now, after some months fending off an attempted SLAPP action by the Group, it is gratifying to see that it is being held to account.”
Gabriel Tan, the chief communications officer at Prince Group, had not responded to a request for comment as of press time.
Elite Collusion
Given Chen’s connections to high-level officials, including the Hun family, this week’s U.S. indictment also highlights the prominent role that Cambodia has come to occupy in Southeast Asia’s scamming boom. Last year, the United States Institute of Peace reported that Cambodia-based cyber-scam operations were generating an estimated $12.5 billion annually – an amount equivalent to half the country’s formal GDP – and that many fraud compounds were “owned by local elites.”
Last year, the U.S. and U.K. imposed sanctions on Ly Yong Phat, one of Cambodia’s richest men and a leading member of the CPP, due to his alleged involvement in forced labor, human trafficking, and online scams. In July, Thai authorities also issued an arrest warrant for Kok An, a CPP senator and longtime ally of Hun Sen, accusing him of money laundering and involvement in a transnational criminal organization. It alleged that buildings he owns in the Cambodian border town of Poipet have hosted online scamming centers.
The Cambodian government has denied providing cover for cyberscam syndicates, and has declared a series of well-publicized crackdowns on these operations. Earlier this year, the government announced the establishment of an inter-ministerial task force to lead the fight against online scam operations, and Cambodian police have also conducted raids that have led to the rescue of hundreds of trafficking victims.
These efforts have seemingly done little to stem the problem. In a report published in June, the rights group Amnesty International described the Cambodian government’s response has been “grossly inadequate,” accusing it of being “complicit” in the country’s scamming problem. Amnesty alleged that more than two-thirds of the 53 scam compounds identified in its report were either not investigated by police or had continued to operate even after interventions by the Cambodian authorities. This week, South Korea’s National Security Adviser Wi Sung-lac put the number of workers in Cambodian scam compounds at around 200,000.
Yesterday, Cambodian Interior Minister spokesperson Touch Sokhak told the Associated Press that Cambodia would cooperate with the U.S. government if it made a formal request, but said that Cambodia’s government itself had not accused Prince or Chen of wrongdoing. “I don’t have much to say about the American and British authorities’ seeking to arrest him, but first, we just hope that there will be arguments and sufficient proof to put against him,” Sokhak said.
The full effect of the sanctions is unclear, but given Prince’s ubiquity in Cambodia, it could well have considerable repercussions. According to a local media report, customers of Prince Bank are having difficulty accessing their funds (in a statement, the Bank said that it remained “fully operational and compliant with all Cambodian laws and regulatory requirements”), and there a considerable numbers of individuals and entities with links to Prince that could be exposed to secondary sanctions. The Treasury Department has announced a 45-day “wind-down license” that gives individuals and organizations a deadline of November 28 to cut their ties with Prince before possible secondary sanctions come into effect.
Jacob Sims, a transnational crime expert who is also a columnist for The Diplomat, said that the sanctions would not necessarily end Cambodia’s scamming scourge, but had shifted the status quo in a significant way. The sanctions announcement “changes the risk calculus on a key regime patron and criminal profit vein,” he said. “And it sends a powerful message to the CPP that the world is ready to start fighting fire with fire.”
The severity of the U.S. and U.K. actions, and Prince’s prominence in Cambodia, is likely to have reputational and possibly diplomatic repercussions for the Cambodian government. It is clear that the apparently cosmetic crackdowns of the past will be inadequate to address foreign governments’ growing concerns about Cambodia-based online scamming operations. Without meaningful action, the country risks being ostracized by growing segments of the outside world, and potentially significant damage both to its relations with key Western governments, including the United States. Sims said that the sanctions had now placed an onus on the Cambodian government “to hand over one of their most valuable revenue-generating kingpins or otherwise distance themselves from him.”
Given the central role that online scamming revenues have come to play in Cambodia’s political economy, this could well involve politically difficult decisions for Prime Minister Hun Manet. Whatever the Cambodian government’s response, the world will be watching more closely than ever.