To watch the full episode, please click on the FinalWar’s official YouTube channel here.
From Myanmar to Cambodia, a scamming empire that flourished for over a decade is now collapsing under the weight of international investigations. Its alleged mastermind, Fujian-born tycoon Chen Zhi (陈志) — chairman of Cambodia’s powerful Prince Group — has been placed on the U.S. most wanted list.
But as Katherine Hu opens in this FinalWar episode, the deeper danger lies not in organized crime alone, but in a system intertwined with Xi’s Belt and Road Initiative and the hidden fortunes of elites in Beijing. In her words, the unfolding scandal reveals “a network tied to Xi’s Belt and Road campaign, and to the hidden fortunes of the Xi family.”
RELATED: Who Now Holds Power in Beijing? Inside the Internal Power Shift Reshaping China
A $15 billion crackdown that rocked the world
In October 2025, the U.S. and U.K. froze all offshore assets tied to Chen Zhi and seized over $15 billion in Bitcoin, calling it one of the largest forced-labor financial operations ever uncovered. They accused Chen’s Prince Group of running a web of “cryptocurrency investment” platforms and “development projects” that hid a brutal system of forced labor, human trafficking, and digital fraud across Southeast Asia.
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The Prince Group’s scams weren’t small-scale cybercrime. Investigators found what Katherine Hu calls “a machinery of suffering that stretched across Southeast Asia.”
Meanwhile, across the border in Myanmar, the infamous scam city KK Park — a criminal fortress protected for years by militias and Chinese capital — was carpet-bombed by Myanmar’s military. For the first time, the compound long considered untouchable was left in flames.
Inside KK Park
KK Park had been one of Asia’s most notorious scamming hubs — “a heaven for fraudsters, a hell for the enslaved,” says Hu. Tens of thousands were trafficked into the compound, forced to work marathon scam shifts, beaten, resold, or disappeared.
When the bombings began in late October, thousands fled on foot, swimming across the Moei River or dragging suitcases through the mud.
Videos showed entire buildings collapsing as explosions lit up the night sky. Officials later confirmed ground troops had taken the compound, but other parks were still operating. As Hu notes, “operations there have continued as usual… proof that the business of deception hasn’t stopped.”
The KK network was deeply tied to Chinese infrastructure. Its internet backbone, telecom networks, and electricity grids were all supplied by Chinese state-linked firms. It sat along China’s Belt and Road “economic corridor,” part of a broader strategy to keep Myanmar destabilized and democratic reforms at bay. “The more chaos, the safer the regime in Beijing felt,” said Hu in the episode.
The Belt and Road pipeline that fed the scam
The roots trace back to 2015, when Xi Jinping pushed Belt and Road aggressively into Myanmar. Beijing deployed Geng Zhiyuan (耿志远) — son of former defense minister Geng Biao — to coordinate operations with militias, mafia networks, and authoritarian officials.
RELATED: Myanmar Military Bombs ‘KK Park’ Scam Center, Spotlighting Criminal Groups’ Beijing Ties
It was this united-front structure, Hu says, that helped clear the path to remove Aung San Suu Kyi from power. By 2017, glossy propaganda celebrated “economic-corridor partnerships” that later became the infrastructure for scam cities. The projects were not simply construction ventures; they became criminal ecosystems.
One Belt and Road zone carried a staggering $15 billion investment. State-run giants like China Metallurgical Group and Northern Heavy Industries built the very infrastructure that scammers later used to imprison, exploit, and blackmail victims.
China officially denies involvement, but arrests across Myanmar and Cambodia show that the majority of traffickers, engineers, and scammers were Chinese nationals, often tied to Fujian underworld networks.
The Cambodia connection
Born in Fuzhou in 1987, Chen Zhi began as an “internet-addicted kid,” drifting between gaming cafés and hacking forums. By his twenties, he had built a fortune in China’s underground cyber economy. In 2010 he left for Cambodia, where weak laws and easy political access allowed him to rise rapidly.
RELATED: Global Manhunt Underway for Prince Group’s Chen Zhi
By 28, he had founded the Prince Group, turning it into a conglomerate with sprawling real-estate projects, casinos, investment firms, and, per U.S. prosecutors, Asia’s largest forced-labor scamming network.
He became a celebrated philanthropist: donating millions, hosting political galas, and even receiving Cambodia’s honorary title of “Duke.” But U.S. investigators paint a starkly different portrait.
Inside Chen’s computer, authorities found detailed spreadsheets labeled:
- “A2001 – Vietnam orders”
- “B2002 – China chats”
- “B2003 – EU/US chats”
Each code represented a region targeted by fraud.
At one peak site, Golden Swan Park, 1,200 phones controlled 76,000 social accounts—pulling in $30 million per day.
A staggering $50–70 billion a year in scams
Across Southeast Asia, an estimated 350,000 people now work in compounds in Cambodia, Myanmar, and Laos, generating $50–70 billion annually. Prince Group held the largest share of that illicit market.
A 2022 FBI takedown in Brooklyn uncovered ties between Prince Group casinos and fraud schemes targeting U.S. victims. By 2025, Cambodia confirmed that several major casinos—including Jinbei—were owned and controlled by Chen’s network.
It took one extraordinary breakthrough to bring the empire down. When Thai police arrested one of Chen’s senior executives, he agreed to cooperate. He revealed the location of Chen’s private computer containing the encrypted keys to his Bitcoin empire. Working with Thai investigators, the FBI cracked the encryption, exposing billions in laundered funds flowing into yachts, jets, luxury art, even a Picasso.
Money moved through the British Virgin Islands into London real estate, disguised as foreign investment. But then came a bigger question: Was Chen merely a rogue billionaire, or was he operating under Beijing’s protection?
A Chinese agent defects
A former Ministry of Public Security operative known publicly as Eric defected to Australia. He began posting detailed testimony online, alleging that: “Beijing offers political cover and access; the business tycoons provide funding and disguise.”
He said Chen worked for years under the protection of officials tied to Sun Lijun, and that Beijing used the Prince Group as a “logistics hub” for overseas intelligence operations. “Because the state itself is the biggest backer,” said Eric in a chilling statement.
He described meetings between Beijing political-security officials and Chen in Phnom Penh, where they plotted missions, including attempts to lure dissidents like cartoonist RebelPepper back to China.
Chen’s network wasn’t limited to Indochina. Through shell companies, Prince Group acquired a 99-year lease on Palau’s Ngerbelas Island, located just kilometers from a U.S. military radar installation in the Second Island Chain. Analysts believe the acquisition had strategic motives tied to China’s Pacific expansion.
The Xi family connection
Rumors linking Chen to the Xi family’s wealth networks intensified after the sanctions. Human rights activist Sheng Xue stated that Xi’s sister Qi Qiaoqiao was furious because a significant portion of her overseas assets may have been managed through Chen’s financial channels.
Even without hard proof, one fact stands out: Chen enjoyed extraordinary immunity inside China, and Chinese state media heavily promoted the Prince Group, until it collapsed. 23 glowing articles praising Chen vanished overnight. Screenshots spread under the sarcastic hashtag: “When the propaganda turns to dust.”
One online comment captured the public sentiment, “He abused and enslaved thousands of our own people — nothing happened. But after one Korean and two British citizens were harmed, the whole world took action.”
The collapse truly began after the disappearance and death of a South Korean student in Cambodia. Global outrage forced the international crackdown, freezing 146 accounts across Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Palau. Today, Chen Zhi is a fugitive. His once-grand compounds sit abandoned—empty guard posts, sealed gates, and rows of deserted dormitories.
As Hu notes, the telecom-fraud web stretching across Southeast Asia “was never just about money.”
It was a strategic ecosystem built to destabilize fragile democracies and expand Beijing’s reach — an intelligence and financial apparatus disguised as development zones.
To watch the full episode, please click on the FinalWar’s official YouTube channel here.
