The United States has sanctioned two Cypriot passport holders as part of a major crackdown on Southeast Asian criminal networks involved in online scams and money laundering.
The US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) imposed a total of 146 sanctions. Among those targeted were Zhi Chen, originally from Cambodia, and Jian Yang, from China. Both hold Cypriot passports.
'Predatory criminals'
Chen is linked to the Prince Group Transational Criminal Organisation, while Yang is linked to the Grand Legend International Asset Management Group.
The Prince Group Transnational Criminal Organization (Prince Group TCO), is a Cambodia-based network led by Cambodian national Chen Zhi that operates a transnational criminal empire through online investment scams targeting Americans and others worldwide.
Zhi was also sanctioned by the UK, while a criminal indictment has been filed against him in the US.
“The rapid rise of transnational fraud has cost American citizens billions of dollars, with life savings wiped out in minutes,” said Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent. “Treasury is taking action to protect Americans by cracking down on foreign scammers. Working in close coordination with federal law enforcement and international partners like the United Kingdom, Treasury will continue to lead efforts to safeguard Americans from predatory criminals.”
Mastermind Chen Zhi
Described as a 38-year-old Chinese émigré who has since renounced his Chinese citizenship and has built a business empire in Cambodia through the Prince Group TCO, Zhi holds a Cypriot passport too.
According to OFAC Zhi "via the Prince Group TCO, comingles illicit revenues with the legitimate Cambodian economy, laundering these ill-gotten gains through a complicated network of over 100 shell and holding companies all around the world.
"Under Chen Zhi’s leadership, the criminal revenues generated by the Prince Group TCO’s have been instrumental in supporting its ostensibly legitimate business ventures, most of which operate through entities under the control of Prince Group TCO, including Prince Holding Group, Prince Bank Plc. (Prince Bank), and Prince Huan Yu Real Estate Cambodia Group Co. Ltd."
Sextortion and scam compounds
OFAC specified Prince Group TCO profits from a litany of transnational crimes including sextortion - a type of fraud involving the solicitation for eventual blackmail of sexually explicit materials, often from minors - money laundering, various frauds and rackets, corruption, illegal online gambling, and the industrial-scale trafficking, torture, and extortion of enslaved workers in furtherance of the operation of at least ten scam compounds in Cambodia.
In these compounds, workers are often lured by the promise of well-paid jobs in customer service, tech support, and related fields, but are instead held against their will and made to scam people from around the world in so-called “pig butchering” and other fraud schemes.
These schemes involve cultivating, sometimes over the course of months, elaborate relationships with victims, gaining their trust and confidence, then inducing them to “invest” funds in fraudulent investment platforms ultimately controlled by scammers. The butchering comes when the scammers go dark after taking every dollar they can from their victims.
"The cruelty of this criminal activity is twofold: the scammers are -not always, but often-victims themselves of human trafficking for forced labor. They are subjected to barbaric methods of control at the hands of their captors including physical abuse, isolation, restriction of movement, arbitrary fines and fees, threats of sexual exploitation, and the confiscation of personal documents and electronics. In recent months, numerous reports have surfaced online of people enduring horrific treatment at sites associated with Prince Group TCO."
Jian Yang
Yang's connection to the sanctions list is described as an organised crime facilitaror which "enables Prince Group TCO's predatory investments on Palau."
Specifically, Prince Group TCO has worked with Wang Guodan (a.k.a Rose Wang), a Palau-based organized crime facilitator, to establish a luxury resort in Palau. Grand Legend International Asset Management Co., Ltd. (Grand Legend) is a Chen Zhi-controlled company in Palau that is affiliated with the Prince Group TCO. Grand Legend acquired a 99-year lease to Ngerbelas Island in Kayangel, Palau, where it is in the process of developing the luxury resort.
Yang, along with Chen Xiao’er are directors of Grand Legend.