Fugitive arrested
The alleged fugitive scam kingpin the US Department of the Treasury seized $15bn worth of Bitcoin from in October has been arrested in Cambodia and extradited to China.
one of three arrested
According to reports on Thursday, Cambodia’s interior ministry stated that Chen Zhi, 38, was one of three arrested earlier this week after months of cooperation between authorities in the Southeast Asia country and those in China.
Inside Asia Gaming cited a Cambodian interior ministry statement disclosing that authorities “have arrested three Chinese nationals, namely Chen Zhi, Xu Ji Liang, and Shao Ji Hui, and extradited them to the People’s Republic of China”.
The ministry added that the operation to arrest the Prince Group mastermind and others came after a request from China and was conducted “within the scope of cooperation in combating transnational crime.”
Major scalp
The arrest of Zhi and alleged associates echoes that of the fall of Macau junket kingpin and ex-Suncity CEO Alvin Chau, who was arrested with ten others in 2021 and sentenced to 18 years in jail in 2023.
In October, the US District Court for the Eastern District of New York unsealed an indictment against Zhi, claiming that his network in Brooklyn scammed over 250 New Yorkers and other US citizens out of “millions of dollars.”
Should Zhi have stood trial in the US for the New York charges, he could have faced a jail sentence of up to 40 years.
The US Department of Justice accused Zhi of running the Cambodia-based Prince Group since 2015, an organization that actively builds and runs scam centers that rely on human trafficking to drive gambling, dating, and cyber crime “pig butchering” schemes.
Global reach
Prince Group’s arrested chief is accused of masterminding the network’s worldwide expansion to “dozens of entities spanning more than 30 countries.”
Despite denying all allegations, Zhi and the Prince Group have been sanctioned by the UK, South Korea, Singapore, and Hong Kong. The alleged kingpin moved to Cambodia from Fujian in 1987 and gained citizenship in 2014.
Following his arrest, however, Zhi’s Cambodian citizenship has been revoked.
