Prince Holding Group- Sinister Chairman Chen Zhi Directed Global Crime Empire Committing Appalling Human Rights Violations and Massive Crypto Scams
Recent disclosures about the Commodian conglomerate Prince Holding Group’s and its Chairman, Chen ‘Vincent’ Zhi are horrific and include allegations of large scale human trafficking operations where victims are held hostage on ‘phone farms’ and forced to commit crypto scams on a scale unseen before with transnational criminal networks. Chen Zhi allegedly runs an international money laundering network that was targeted with sanctions this past October by the US Department of Justice with a whopping landmark 14 Billion USD forfeiture order against “currency addresses linked to Chen”. In addition last week the EU slapped sanctions on Chen Zhi, the Prince Group and other associated companies and individuals “for running extensive human trafficking and online scam operations across Southeast Asia.”
Chen Zhi- Obtained Several Citizenships in a decade of international scam operations and forced labor camps
The rise and fall of Chen Zhi, a Chinese born citizen who was arrested in Cambodia in January this year and shortly thereafter extradited to China is a case study in transnational crime organizations. Chen Zhi established Prince Holding Group in 2015 and purchased real estate in the coastal town of Sihanoukville, Cambodia at a time when Chinese investors where flocking to this region and building large scale casinos and other businesses linked to the on-line gambling industry. The real estate boom tapered off in 2019 when the Cambodian government outlawed on-line and arcade gambling and then the COVID pandemic in 2020 forced Chinese investors to desert Sihanoukville practically leaving the city in a ghost town condition. But Chen Zhi saw opportunity and in a short few years became a regional criminal kingpin by buying low priced properties in Cambodia (where he also became a citizen and a top advisor to the Cambodian government) while also launching large scale investment scams targeting victims in the US and the UK.
An international effort to bring Chen Zhi to justice (dubbed ‘Operation Prince’) culminated in October 2026 when “the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), working with the U.K. Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO), sanctioned 146 targets linked to the Prince Group”. From about 2016 Chen Zhi utilized Prince Group’s financial resources to set up secret compounds in Sihanoukville and other locations in Cambodia where thousands of workers from South East Asia, attracted by bogus work offers to work were in fact held captive in ‘phone farms’ and forced to undertake ‘Pig Butchering’ and ‘Romance Scams’ scams targeting US British and EU victims. Since Chen Zhi’s arrest “thousands of foreign workers have been released from compounds over recent weeks”. Prince Group’s success in establishing these compounds , which were in actuality brutal forced labor camps allowed Chen Zhi to industrialize forced labor output on a scale not seen since the Nazi’s forced labor camps in Europe during World War 2.
In the past 10 years Chen Zhi was able to obtain several citizenships from a wide range of countries. “In 2014 he became a Cambodian citizen, giving up his Chinese nationality”. in subsequent years he also obtained UK and Cyprus citizenships and even had footprints in the Pacific and Caribbean regions where he respectively received Vanuatu and Saint Lucia citizenships. In under a decade Prince Group Holdings came out of nowhere and grew into a vast criminal syndicate.
Cambodia Complicity in Chen Zhi’s Rise to Power & China’s Decision to Remove Him
Chen Zhi could never have achieved his criminal success without the support of the Cambodian government. This a pure case of a state sponsoring transnational criminal networks. Within 5 to 7 years of establishing Prince Group Holdings it became the largest conglomerate in Cambodia. In a short space of time Chen Zhi reached the highest levels of the Cambodian government and “once served as an adviser to two Cambodian prime ministers, Hun Sen and Hun”. Chen Zhi and his subordinate lieutenants were deeply embedded with senior Cambodian military, law enforcement and political officials all of whom were involved in a web of bribes and criminal activities in a country well known for its notorious institutional corruption.
The main factor that led to Chen Zhi’s demise was Cambodia’s main ally and economic sponsor- China. The viral exposure of the Prince Group’s links to Chen Zhi’s massive fraud operations and human trafficking operations became an ugly thorn in Beijing’s side and was personally embarrassing to China’s President Xi Jinping who has publicly vowed to stamp out corruption. The assumption is that China had enough of Chen Zhi and his cohorts and decided the time had come to put them out of business. The Chinese were also keen to detain Chen and his associates (all of whom have been criminally charged in the UK and US) before US or British Law Enforcement could nab them. This “defuses Western scrutiny while aligning with Beijing’s likely preference to keep a politically sensitive case out of U.S. and U.K. courts”. It also belies the obvious fact that Chen Zhi’s network was also complicit in bribing middle and high ranking Chinese officials.
In conclusion China’s concerted efforts to shut down Chen Zhi took a dark turn last week. On July 28 the Chinese prosecutors filed a new intentional injury charge against him “that carries a possible death sentence”. Executing Chen Zhi would serve China’s interests by making an example of him and concealing what secrets he may have on Chinese officials who helped him build his evil empire. This man who once had over six different citizenships has now had them all revoked and is technically stateless. If there was ever an instance of ‘Poetic Justice’ this case certainly qualifies for the title.