Cambodia extradites alleged scam mastermind to China after arrest

Cambodia says it has extradited to China a billionaire businessman accused of masterminding an enormous cryptocurrency rip-off wherein trafficked staff have been lured to pressured labour camps to defraud victims globally.

Chen Zhi was amongst three Chinese language nationals arrested on 6 January after a joint investigation into transnational crime lasting a number of months, Cambodia stated.

The US charged the 37-year-old, who was born in south-east China, final October with operating web scams from Cambodia that it stated had stolen billions in cryptocurrency.

The US Treasury Department seized about $14bn (£10.4bn) worth of bitcoin it alleged belonged to him. The UK also sanctioned his global business empire, Prince Group.

US prosecutors stated it was one the most important monetary takedowns in historical past and the most important ever seizure of bitcoin.

The BBC contacted Prince Group for remark on the time. Previously, the Cambodia-based group has denied any involvement in scams. Its web site says its companies embrace property improvement, and monetary and shopper providers.

Since Chen Zhi was indicted by the US on fraud and money-laundering expenses in October, his whereabouts have been unclear.

However on Wednesday, the Cambodian authorities stated they’d “arrested three Chinese language nationals particularly Chen Zhi, Xu Ji Liang, and Shao Ji Hui and extradited [them] to the Folks’s Republic of China”. The inside ministry assertion didn’t say the place Chen Zhi had been detained.

His Cambodian nationality had been revoked by royal decree final month, it added. The enigmatic tycoon had given up his Chinese language nationality to develop into a Cambodian citizen in 2014.

The UN estimates that a whole lot of 1000’s of individuals have been trafficked to South East Asia, lots of them to Cambodia, lured by the promise of authentic jobs after which pressured to run on-line scams.

Individuals are held in opposition to their will within the rip-off farms and made to defraud strangers on-line below the specter of punishment or torture. Lots of these trapped are Chinese language and focused individuals in China.

Chinese language authorities have additionally been quietly investigating the Prince Group since a minimum of 2020. The corporate is accused of operating on-line fraud schemes in a lot of courtroom instances.

The Beijing Municipal Public Safety Bureau established a job pressure to research the Prince Group, describing it as “a significant transnational on-line playing syndicate primarily based in Cambodia”.

Cambodia’s ruling elite have been near Chen Zhi for years. The federal government has stated little for the reason that US and UK sanctioned Prince Group, other than urging US and UK authorities to make certain they’d enough proof for his or her allegations.

By some estimates, rip-off companies might account for round half of the whole Cambodian economic system.

“I believe it is the sheer scale of his operations which actually makes Chen Zhi stand out,” Jack Adamovic Davies, a journalist who has investigated Chen Zhi, informed the BBC final yr.

He stated it was surprising the Prince Group had been capable of construct a “international footprint” with out elevating alarm bells, given the intense felony expenses it now faces.

Extra reporting by South East Asia correspondent Jonathan Head