After months of investigation, Cambodia has arrested billionaire Chen Zhi, head of the notorious Prince Group, and extradited him to China. He is accused of running a global empire of crypto fraud, human trafficking, and forced labor camps.
Details
🏢 $30 million per day: According to US indictments, Chen Zhi allegedly boasted that his fraud networks brought in $30 million daily. The Prince Group operated at least 10 forced labor compounds in Cambodia.
⛓️ Modern slavery: People were lured into these compounds under false promises, imprisoned, and forced through violence to scam hundreds of people online every day.
💔 The "pig butchering" scheme: The forced laborers spend weeks building romantic relationships with their victims ("fattening the pig"), then persuade them to invest in fake apps until all their savings are gone ("butchering").
- In 2024 alone, over $4 billion was stolen worldwide this way.
🏛️ Global hunt: Since Chen Zhi's Prince Group operated companies in nearly 30 countries, assets in Singapore, Hong Kong, and London were simultaneously frozen.
💰 Record haul: In October, the US seized 127,271 Bitcoin worth $15 billion at the time—the largest crypto seizure in history.
Good to know
The insidious part of this system: Many of the scammers who contact you online are victims themselves. They are tortured in the camps if they don't meet their "fraud quotas."
China is now responding with extreme severity, as hundreds of thousands of Chinese citizens are among both the victims and the forced laborers.
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