Cambodian tycoon Chen Zhija, also known as Vincent, has been thrust into the spotlight after U.S. authorities seized more than $14 billion in bitcoin and indicted the 38-year-old founder of Prince Holding Group. Prosecutors allege the fraud involved forced labor, laundering billions of dollars and financing a lavish lifestyle, including yachts, private jets and Picassos.
In an indictment released Tuesday, federal prosecutors in Brooklyn say Chen ran a “spanning cyberfraud empire” by running so-called “swine” scams; online scams in which victims are lured into phony crypto investments. At one point, Chen reportedly boasted that the operation was bringing in $30 million a day.
The Prince Group built at least 10 forced labor camps in Cambodia. Many of them were migrants lured by fake job ads. They were tasked with bombarding targets on social media and messaging apps. The money was then laundered through Chen’s other companies and shell companies, and spent on luxury travel, real estate, watches, and art. One victim lost more than $400,000 in cryptocurrencies.
The complexes featured dormitories surrounded by high walls and barbed wire, with floors of call centers and shelves full of phones that controlled tens of thousands of fake profiles. One complex was connected to the Jinbei Casino Hotel, the other to the Golden Fortune Hotel. Workers were kept in solitary confinement and sometimes beaten; Chen authorized at least one beating with the warning that the victim should not be “beaten to death.”
Chen remains at large, facing up to 40 years in prison. The U.S. has seized 127,271 bitcoins, currently valued at about $100,000 each, and the funds could be used to compensate victims if the court allows it. According to UN estimates, about 100,000 people in Cambodia are forced to participate in online fraud, while there are at least 120,000 in Myanmar, and tens of thousands in Thailand, Laos and the Philippines.
Jacob Daniel Sims, an expert on transnational crime at Harvard, said: “These actions will not end the fraud economy overnight, but they reduce the oxygen supply and send a rare message to regimes like Cambodia’s that elite crime as a ruling strategy is a double-edged sword.”
