How accused kingpin Chen Zhi built an empire from Cambodia to London

PHNOM PENH – Three years ago, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen gifted locally crafted luxury wristwatches to other world leaders at the time, including then US President Joe Biden during a regional summit in Phnom Penh.

Each Lotus Tourbillon timepiece was emblazoned with 25 jewels, with the crown-shaped logo of Cambodian conglomerate Prince Holding Group etched into its components.

After accepting the watch, Mr Biden transferred it to the US National Archives along with items with a combined value of US$1,790 (S$2,330).

The gifts – designed and assembled by a watchmaking school started by Prince Group – show how the enterprise and its China-born chairman Chen Zhi entered the upper echelons of global influence.

The 37-year-old worked meticulously to cultivate an image of legitimacy and even philanthropy, and built connections with important people and organisations.

He accumulated properties ranging from a London office building to luxury apartments in Singapore and Taiwan, and oversaw a business empire that stretched from the beaches of Palau to the financial hub of Hong Kong.

That reach is now rapidly unravelling, after the US and British authorities in mid-October accused Chen and his network of running a transnational criminal ring that operated scam centres using forced labour and laundered billions of dollars in stolen funds around the world.

The US Treasury Department imposed sanctions on 146 entities and individuals within the Prince Group, including Chen.

The revelations, which emerged when the authorities indicted Chen and seized US$15 billion in bitcoin, shed light on how he and his associates operated largely unhindered for more than a decade.

Local media outlets in Singapore – where he established a family office and spent time – and Cambodia also lauded his business achievements.

Even when reports of the group’s alleged ties to organised crime began to surface in 2024, various companies continued to work with Chen and his network. 

Prince Group “almost certainly thrived more fully because of the openness and ability to move capital in and out of places like Hong Kong and Singapore”, said Mr Jacob Sims, a visiting fellow at Harvard University’s Asia Centre who researches transnational crime.

“The international community’s response has verged on, if not crossed over into complicity.”

The Cambodian conglomerate has denied accusations of money laundering and other illegal activities in statements that have since been removed from its website.

Chen remains at large and could not be reached. Prince Group did not respond to an e-mailed request for comment.

Singapore police said on Oct 31 that they mounted an enforcement operation against Chen and his associates relating to money laundering and forgery.

The police seized more than S$150 million in assets and

froze items including a yacht

, 11 cars and multiple bottles of liquor.  

Chen was born in 1987 in Fujian, a province in south-eastern China.

The now-removed website of his Singapore family office described him as a “young business prodigy” who early on set up gaming centres in the provincial capital of Fuzhou.

He subsequently renounced his Chinese citizenship and now holds passports from Cyprus and Vanuatu, as well as Cambodia, the US Treasury Department said. 

He began investing in real estate in the poor South-east Asian country in 2011, and later set up Prince Group, whose interests also span entertainment, finance and even an airline.

Over time, he became an adviser to Mr Hun Sen, Cambodia’s long-time leader, as well as the politician’s son and successor Hun Manet, who is now prime minister. 

At the Asean Summit in Cambodia’s capital in November 2022, wristwatches crafted by Prince’s watchmaking school were also handed to other dignitaries, including Canada’s then Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.

Mr Trudeau is recorded as forfeiting his timepiece to the Crown, while Mr Albanese also gave up the gift. 

US prosecutors accused Chen and his associates of using “their political influence to protect the scam operations from law enforcement in multiple countries”. 

In one case, his co-conspirator allegedly promised to “take care of” a Chinese public security official’s son in exchange for the official offering to get Prince Group associates “off the hook”.

A senior unnamed foreign government official who received luxury watches worth millions of dollars from Chen also helped him to obtain a diplomatic passport, which he used to travel to the US in April 2023, according to the indictment.

Chen laid down roots in Singapore, a country that has long prided itself on zero tolerance of corruption and crime.

In 2017, he splurged nearly $40 million on luxury properties in the city-state, including a $17 million penthouse in Gramercy Park, near the Orchard Road shopping belt. 

A $16.2 million suite at a designer condo called Le Nouvel Ardmore became a key centre of activity, according to two people familiar with Chen and his associates.

The apartment, which includes a wine cellar and panoramic city views, was converted into a clubhouse for business dealings, with dedicated areas for karaoke and smoking cigars, the people said, asking for anonymity to talk candidly about his affairs.

Chen travelled around Singapore in luxury cars, including a black Mercedes-Maybach with the vanity plate “5555”.

The group held frequent parties, including at Nonni II, a 53m luxury yacht that was often parked at the Sentosa resort island, one of the people said. 

In 2018, Chen’s family office, DW Capital Holdings, was set up in Singapore.

It claimed to manage more than $60 million of assets.

Over time, he tapped key lieutenant Karen Chen Xiuling as DW Capital’s chief financial officer –

one of three Singapore citizens

who would eventually be targeted by US sanctions due to their association with him.

Karen Chen did not respond to requests for comment. 

Chen Zhi and his associates also set up a firm in Singapore called Skyline Investment Management that made car loans. 

In a suburban neighbourhood, Chen-controlled firms opened a co-working space that hosted the Mexican ambassador for a tequila tasting event, and a warehouse that stored tea, whisky and cigars that received duty exemptions from the local authorities.

As recently as the day the US charges went public, the family office advertised for a personal assistant role that entailed, among other things, buying groceries and shuttling children to and from school, with pay of as much as $5,500 a month.

Chen is married with three children who have lived in the city-state, one of the people said. 

Hong Kong, London

Chen has assets in other major locations too.

In London, the British authorities froze assets as part of the crackdown, locking Chen and his network out of the financial system.

They included a £100 million (S$171 million) office building at Fenchurch Street in the heart of the old financial district, along with a £12 million mansion and 17 flats in New Oxford Street and in Nine Elms in south London.

In Taiwan, the group spent about NT$3.8 billion ($160 million) buying luxury properties in Taipei from April to November 2019, according to transaction records.

In Hong Kong, Chen and his group control more than US$300 million of assets from public company stakes to property in one of the city’s busiest shopping districts, according to data compiled by Bloomberg based on regulatory filings.

He is the controlling shareholder of two listed companies trading on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

Both firms – Geotech Holdings, a construction engineering service firm, and

Khoon Group

, a mechanical and electrical services provider based in Singapore – are on the sanctions list released by the US authorities.  

The two stakes are worth about US$14 million combined, Bloomberg-compiled data showed.

Both Geotech and Khoon Group said in statements on Oct 15 that they are “actively seeking legal advice in relation to the sanctions” and monitoring the situation.

A director resigned from Khoon Group’s board on Oct 23, and the firm’s auditor said the next day it would not seek reappointment. 

Chen’s empire even reached the remote island nation of Palau, where the US authorities allege Prince worked with “known organised crime facilitators” to lease an island and establish resorts. 

‘Plain sight’

“Prince Group and Chen Zhi have been a known quantity for many years,” said Mr Morgan Stark, Hong Kong-based Asia head of S-RM Intelligence and Risk Consulting.

That begs the question how the group was able to “operate in plain sight” over that time, he said. 

Singapore police said they had received intelligence in 2024 of suspicious transactions and engaged foreign counterparts for assistance.

But it was the additional information from the US and British statements on Oct 14 that prompted their latest action. 

The Monetary Authority of Singapore, which is working with local police, said financial institutions had filed suspicious transaction records “early on”.

Some of them had closed accounts they found dubious, which “averted larger sums from being held in our financial sector”, the regulator said on Oct 31. 

Besides Singapore, other authorities in Asia are now probing Chen and his network.

The Taipei District Prosecutors Office said it learnt of the matter through media reports and immediately opened a case.

Hong Kong police said they are gathering intelligence to combat fraud, without providing specifics.

A spokesman for Cambodia’s government declined to comment on the case, referring instead to recent comments by the country’s central bank governor, Ms Chea Serey, who spoke more broadly about fraud compounds at a Bloomberg forum on Oct 27.

She said Cambodia cannot just be “summarised as scam centres”, and such a notion is damaging to the country.

Ream city

It was in Cambodia where an ambitious plan to transform the coastal city of Sihanoukville catapulted Chen’s profile yet higher – even as questions about his enterprises began to swirl.

A unit of the group, Canopy Sands Development, engaged Singapore companies to work on the US$16 billion project, called Ream City.

But cracks were starting to appear in Prince’s image.

In response to a Radio Free Asia article in February 2024 pointing to red flags about the group, it hit back, including hiring Singapore law firm Duane Morris & Selvam LLP as a legal adviser.

An employee at the firm said it was not representing Prince any more and declined to comment further.

Still, companies looking to expand in Cambodia turned to Prince, especially those seeking business in the 934ha project, now renamed the Bay of Lights. 

The Ascott, a lodging unit of Singapore’s CapitaLand Group, announced in April 2024 a “ground-breaking partnership with Canopy Sands” to manage two properties, including a beachside camping-style resort whose listing it removed after the US sanctions were imposed.

Radisson Hotel Group announced plans for a 176-key hotel in the Bay of Lights as recently as September.

Ascott said it was appointed by Canopy Sands to provide hospitality management services and does not hold any ownership interest in the two properties.

It has terminated the contracts following the recent developments, a spokesperson said.

(Canopy Sands was among the dozens of Chen-linked companies put on Treasury’s sanctions list.)

Radisson did not reply to e-mailed requests for comment.

“From a due diligence standpoint, there’s no really good excuse to not have had Prince on your radar,” said Harvard’s Mr Sims, referring to businesses that worked with the group.

“This does expose the reality that companies do largely around the world rely on governments to de-risk for them.” BLOOMBERG