This screenshot captured from a video released by the Criminal Investigative Department of Chinas Ministry of Public Security on Jan 8, 2026, shows Chen Zhi, who is brought to China by Beijings Blue Sword Commando Unit (蓝剑突击队), one of the most well-equipped and well-trained Special Police Units.Alleged scam tycoon Chen Zhi (陳志), founding chairman of Cambodian conglomerate Prince Holding Group, has been arrested and extradited to China, Cambodias Interior Ministry has declared according to channelnewsasia.
Chen Zhi then was presented in a video released by the Criminal Investigative Department of Chinas Ministry of Public Security on Jan 8, 2026 by Chinas state media: Handcuffed, hood over head, hood taken away - and escorted by the Blue Sword Commando Unit (蓝剑突击队), the SWAT team of the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau.They may have taken him to Dongcheng District Detention Center in Beijing.
These pictures were shown just days after U.S. special forces had abducted Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela, an ally of China, and presented to the media in New York. There are indications, that this was no coincidence. Both men were at the center of the strategic struggle between the two world powers.
Chen Zhi, born in Fujian province in China, now just 38 years old, had built a business empire with financial, property and tourism companies first in Cambodia and then expanded to over 30 countries, not only in Asia but also in the United Kingdom with its overseas territories (properties and companies in London, Isle of Man, Cayman islands, Virgin islands). In 2014 he had become a Cambodian citizen, what was possible with a minimum investment or donation to the government of USD 250'000. It never became clear, where his money came from to start his operations in Cambodia. But he then became advisor of Cambodia's long-time leader Hun Sen and his son Hun Manet, actually Prime Minister. He got the government-bestowed honorific "Neak Oknha", meaning "prominent tycoon". In a country, where China invested heavily along with its Belt-and-Road-Strategy. There are sources who say that Chen Zhi in Cambodia also collaborated with people, who worked for Chinese Intelligence services.
But Chen Zhi also invested in Palau, an archipelago nation in the western Pacific Ocean, associated with the United States, which handle the defence and foreign affairs and provide economic aid. The U.S. sees the islands as crucial to containing China's military expansion and responding to any aggression in the western Pacific, as the BBC notes. The Prince Group tried to lease Ngerbelas Island and establish resorts - close to U.S. military facilities. Other Chinese investors were also buying land nearby. And China tried to draw away Palau from the. U.S. influence with diplomatic actions and economic pressure. And to draw away from Taiwan: Palau is one of only a dozen nations that still recognise Taiwan as a sovereign state. So Chen Zhi got into the middle of a storm: the collision of the security strategy of the two superpowers China and USA.
In October 2025 U.S. federal prosecutors indicted Chen Zhi and his associates for operating Cambodian forced labor scam compounds and engagement in cryptocurrency fraud schemes and money laundering. They said that with the operations guided by Chen Zhi billions of dollars were stolen from victims in the United States and around the world, with so called pig-butchering, different forms of cyberscam, with luring people into investments.
This was only part of the storm: At the same time U.S. Treasury and UK FCDO announced sanctions imposed on 146 targets within "the Prince Group Transnational Criminal Organization (Prince Group TCO)". In addition Cambodia-based financial services conglomerate Huione Group was severed from the U.S. financial system. For years, they said, Huione Group had laundered proceeds of virtual currency scams and heists on behalf of malicious cyber actors. And the Justice Department’s National Security Division informed, that 127,271 Bitcoin from these criminal operations, currently worth approximately $15 billion, "are presently in the custody of the U.S. government". It did not say how the U.S. government got into posession of these Bitcoins. But it was one of the biggest sums confiscated in U.S. history, what illustrates the dimensions of cyberscam operations in Southeastasia and the world.
So tycoon Chen Zhi had lost his fortune by involvement in organized crime, but also, because he was seen as a threat to interests of U.S.Security policy. And he was seen as part of operations to widen Chinas influence. Operations often sustained by Chinese triads in Southeastasia and their collaboration with Chinese intelligence operations. His whereabouts were unknown. But he was demasked: While the Prince Group publicly presented itself as engaged in real estate development, banking, hospitality and philanthropy, while it poured millions of dollars into charitable projects in Cambodia, the U.S federal prosecutors alleged that Prince Group's core business consisted of operating forced-labor compounds throughout Cambodia executing industrial-scale "pig-butchering" cryptocurrency investment fraud schemes.
Demasked were also Cambodia's long-time leader Hun Sen, his son Hun Manet and other involved politicians, because such large-scale criminal operations could not have happened without being tolerated by Cambodian authorities. Chen Zhis case shows "how scam syndicates in Southeast Asia embedded themselves through philanthropy, political access and business ties", camboyanews analyzes.
Meanwhile the Chinese justice saw itself under pressure, to act against the Chinese cyberscam kingpins in Southeastasia, because thousands of Chinese citizens were victims of forced labour or fraud. In the last two years Chinas Ministry of Public Security sent police task forces to Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia and Thailand for crackdowns against online gambling, cyberscam and money laundering.
But also the USA have organized a FBI-taskforce for combatting cybercrime in Southeastasia. And after the capture of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela it became clear: An U.S.-intervention to arrest Chen Zhi could happen anytime. Jacob Sims, expert for Human Rights, Transnational Crime and National Security in Cambodia, analyzes on Linkedin: "Despite harboring and abetting him for over a decade, sustained international pressure has clearly reached a point where inaction was no longer viable for the Cambodian government. Handing Chen Zhi to China was the path of least resistance. It defuses Western scrutiny while aligning with Beijing’s likely preference to keep a politically sensitive case out of U.S. and U.K. courts."
Therefore on Tuesday January 6, 3am a police force broke down the door of a luxury mansion in Tuol Kork district in Phnom Penh, the location, where Chen Zhi was hiding according to EBC Money News in Taipei. And then he was brought to Beijing by its most prominent Swat Team. The anchorman of EBC Money News asks, if Chen Zhi was Beijings spy in Taiwan, where he had a residence, and if he knows a lot of secrets of the Chinese Communist Party, that should not fall into the hands of U.S.Investigators.
These are speculations. The official interpretation was given by a statement by Cambodias interior ministry the day after Chen Zhis extradition:
Cambodian 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 country's interior ministry said in a statement on Wednesday (Jan 7). Chen Zhi’s Cambodian nationality was revoked by royal decree in December 2025.
On January 8 2026 Chinas Ministry of Public Security says Chen Zhi was escorted back to China from Phnom Penh, Cambodia, on Wednesday by a Chinese working group, according to China Daily. "Investigators said Chen's syndicate is suspected of multiple crimes, including operating illegal gambling operations, committing fraud, engaging in illegal business activities and concealing criminal proceeds. Chen has been placed under compulsory measures, and the case remains under further investigation." A ministry official said according to China Daily, public security authorities will soon issue a wanted notice for the first batch of core members of Chen's syndicate and vowed to bring all fugitives to justice. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said at a regular news conference on Thursday that combating online gambling and telecom fraud is a shared international responsibility. She said China has strengthened law enforcement cooperation with Cambodia and other countries to crack down on cross-border telecom fraud.
January 9 2026: Sally Jensen analyses in The Japan Times: "China is moving against the cyberscam tycoons making fortunes in Southeast Asia, driven by mounting public pressure and Beijing’s desire to keep control of judicial processes." She is citing Jacob Sims, a transnational crime expert and visiting fellow at Harvard University’s Asia Center, who said that Chen “has a number of reported ties to Chinese government officials.” She also points to She Zhijiang: The Chinese-born founder of Yatai Group, which allegedly built a notorious scam hub in Shwe Kokko on the Thai-Myanmar border — boarded a flight to China in handcuffs, extradited by Thailand, after spending three years behind bars in Bangkok. While in prison, She Zhijiang claimed to have previously acted as a spy for Beijing’s intelligence agency before he and his Myanmar urban development project were “betrayed” by the Chinese Communist Party.
Du Wen (内蒙古杜文), formerly Dean of the Inner Mongolia Academy of Law and Sociology and now living overseas, comments on Youtube: "Even now, many people still have not realized what role Chen Zhi actually played. He was not an ordinary tycoon, not merely the boss of a scam syndicate, and certainly not just a simple gang leader. Chen Zhi’s true identity was one of the CCP’s most dangerous and most valuable overseas “black gloves.” He was closely connected to the highest levels of the CCP and maintained close ties with the Ministry of State Security. For a long time, he undertook three categories of the darkest, least presentable work: first, money—responsible for laundering, transferring, and hiding enormous amounts of gray and black funds; second, people—through fraud, trafficking, control, and consumption of those “populations that could be sacrificed”; third, operations—providing practical, operational-level support for the Belt and Road Initiative, for geopolitics, and for gray-zone competition. Precisely because of this, the problem with Chen Zhi was never how much money he scammed, but how much he knew that could not be known by outsiders."
Related:
Chen Zhi - Inside one of Asia's allegedly most sophisticated Transnational Criminal Organization. What happened
Huang Yan: The Rise and Fall of Chen Zhi. Huang Yan is a journalist in Cambodia, who knows many details of Chen Zhis Prince Group
Hong Kong News Prince Group Chen Zhi Investigation Page
