A tycoon accused by the US of running one of Asia’s largest criminal cyber scam organisations has been arrested in Cambodia and sent to China. Phnom Penh arrested and extradited Chen Zhi, 38, who was born in China but also has Cambodian citizenship, following a request from Beijing. The ministry added that Chen’s Cambodian citizenship had been revoked.
The US and UK in October indicted Prince Group, which is chaired by Chen, for running industrial-scale scam centres. The company and its affiliates lured workers into prison-like complexes in Cambodia where they were held against their will and forced to run cyber romance and investment scams, according to the indictment.
The US estimated that Americans lost at least $10bn in 2024 to scam operators based in south-east Asia.
“It’s quite likely that Beijing was not keen on seeing him sent to US or UK courts, given the political sensitivity,” said Jacob Sims, a fellow at Harvard University’s Asia Center and a senior adviser on transnational cyber crime at Inca Digital. Chen is likely to face legal action in China, he added.
Prince Group, founded in 2015, is a dominant player in the industry. Under Chen’s direction, it operated “forced-labour scam compounds across Cambodia that engaged in cryptocurrency investment fraud schemes” and ran “pig butchering” scams, the US indictment said—where fraudsters cultivate victims’ trust over time with false promises of huge profits before swindling them.