Singapore police seize record amounts of assets linked to online scam mafia

Six properties, bank accounts, securities accounts, cash… A total of 150 million Singapore dollars, or 100 million euros, were seized by the police of the City-State, reveals the local daily The Straits Times in its edition of October 31.

In this eclectic inventory, other assets – including a yacht, 11 cars and numerous bottles of alcohol – are also subject to orders prohibiting their transfer.

All these assets are linked to one individual: the Chinese-born businessman Chen Zhi who, after moving to Cambodia in 2010, founded the Prince Group company there - which has become the largest conglomerate in the country, with its own bank, airline and “projects all over Cambodia, including tourist resorts and hotels” .

But Prince Group is best known for developing large-scale cyber-scam centers that exploit en masse, using forced labor to defraud victims worldwide. With connections at the heart of Cambodian political and economic power, the Prince Group has transformed into a mafia, laundering staggering sums of dirty money.

The seizure by Singaporean police follows the indictment on October 14 by a New York federal court of the notorious Chen Zhi, who now holds Cambodian citizenship, and three of his associates, Singaporean nationals. They are accused by the US Department of Justice of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering. Prince Group and its subsidiaries are designated as a “transnational criminal organization.”

As part of this action, the Straits Times continues, “the equivalent of at least 15 billion US dollars in bitcoins [13 billion euros] and tens of millions of other assets, including properties in London or in the Palau archipelago in the Pacific, have been seized” .

The exact whereabouts of Chen Zhi and his associates are unknown.