A businessman prosecutors describe as one of the world’s most powerful crime bosses — accused of exploiting thousands of trafficked workers and defrauding victims of billions of dollars — has been arrested overseas and sent to China, Cambodian authorities announced this week.
The man, Chen Zhi, 38, holds multiple nationalities, including China and Cambodia, though Cambodian officials say his passport has now been revoked. He was detained in Cambodia, where his company was headquartered, and was extradited to China after months of coordination between the two governments, according to the country’s interior ministry.
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Chen is the founder and chairman of the Prince Group, a sprawling Cambodian conglomerate that publicly presented itself as a luxury real-estate powerhouse. But U.S. federal prosecutors say that behind the façade, the group served as the command center of a vast criminal network — one that lured victims through sophisticated online scams and siphoned their money, often through cryptocurrency channels.
Officials in the U.S. Eastern District of New York announced an indictment against Chen in October while he remained on the run, saying they had seized roughly $15 billion worth of Bitcoin, believed to be proceeds of the illicit operation. One of the networks linked to Chen allegedly targeted more than 250 people in Brooklyn and Queens, costing them over $18 million, while other victims were scattered across Russia, Taiwan, Vietnam and beyond.
Chen’s removal to China dramatically complicates the chances he will ever face a U.S. courtroom. Washington has no extradition treaty with Beijing, its geopolitical rival, and American prosecutors declined to comment on what options remain.
The case comes amid a surge in online fraud. Americans alone lost an estimated $16 billion to digital scams in 2024, according to federal records — and U.S. officials believe at least $10 billion of that originated from syndicates operating out of Southeast Asia.
Investigators say brutal coercion lies at the center of these networks. Criminal organizations, according to a U.S. Institute of Peace report, have trafficked desperate job seekers and migrants into heavily guarded compounds, where they are forced to run elaborate investment and romance scams.
Beginning around 2015, prosecutors say, Chen and his lieutenants built similar forced-labor camps ringed by walls and barbed wire across Cambodia. Workers were pressed to message new targets daily, cultivate online relationships, and pitch fake investment opportunities. A conspirator bragged that the Prince Group’s schemes generated more than $30 million a day at their peak in 2018.
Once victims transferred their funds, communication was cut off — and the money moved swiftly through layers of laundering. Prosecutors say Chen maintained meticulous ledgers, labeling streams of income as “Russian order fraud,” “Vietnamese loans” and “European and American market.”
The profits allegedly spread through a complex financial web: online gambling businesses tied to the conglomerate, crypto exchanges, shell companies and high-value assets. Investigators say Chen and his circle purchased luxury watches, private jets — even a Picasso painting bought through a New York auction house.
Meanwhile, the Prince Group’s official website painted a far different image: a socially responsible corporation committed to “international standards” and sustainability, portraying Chen as a visionary builder driving Cambodia’s economic rise.
For now, Chen’s fate will unfold in Chinese custody, beyond the reach of American courts. U.S. officials maintain they will continue pursuing related assets and co-conspirators — and warn that as digital fraud becomes more global and more violent, the victims increasingly include not just those who lose their savings, but those compelled to commit the crimes.
