Cambodia says it has extradited to China a billionaire businessman accused of masterminding an unlimited cryptocurrency scam wherein trafficked staff had 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 mentioned.
The US charged the 37-year-old final October with working web scams from Cambodia that it mentioned had stolen billions in cryptocurrency. The UK also sanctioned his global business empire, Prince Group.
Cambodian authorities have additionally suspended the operations of Prince Financial institution, a subsidiary of Prince Group.
The financial institution has been positioned in liquidation and banned from providing new banking providers – although clients can nonetheless withdraw cash and repay loans, the Nationwide Financial institution of Cambodia mentioned on Thursday.
China’s state media confirmed Chen Zhi’s extradition, describing him as “the top of a significant cross-border playing and fraud syndicate… suspected of a number of crimes, together with working casinos, fraud, unlawful enterprise operations and concealing prison proceeds”.
CCTV mentioned he had been “positioned underneath coercive measures in accordance with the regulation”.
“The general public safety organs will quickly concern arrest warrants for the primary batch of key members of Chen Zhi’s prison syndicate, resolutely bringing fugitives to justice,” mentioned CCTV.
“The general public safety organs solemnly warn criminals to recognise the state of affairs, cease their crimes earlier than it is too late, and instantly give up themselves to the authorities to obtain lenient therapy.”
Final yr, US authorities seized about $15bn (£11bn) worth of bitcoin that it alleged belonged to Chen, in what FBI Director Kash Patel described as “one of many largest monetary fraud takedowns in historical past”.
The BBC contacted Prince Group for remark on the time. Up to now, the Cambodia-based group has denied any involvement in scams. Its web site says its companies embody property growth, and monetary and shopper providers.
Since Chen Zhi was indicted by the US on fraud and money-laundering costs in October, his whereabouts have been unclear.
However on Wednesday, the Cambodian authorities mentioned they’d “arrested three Chinese language nationals specifically 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 turn out to be a Cambodian citizen in 2014.
The UN estimates that tons of of hundreds of individuals have been trafficked to South East Asia, lots of them to Cambodia, lured by the promise of reliable jobs after which pressured to run on-line scams.
Individuals are held towards their will within the scam farms and made to defraud strangers on-line underneath the specter of punishment or torture. A lot of these trapped are Chinese language and focused folks in China.
Chinese language authorities have additionally been quietly investigating the Prince Group since no less than 2020. The corporate is accused of working on-line fraud schemes in numerous courtroom circumstances.
The Beijing Municipal Public Safety Bureau established a activity pressure to examine the Prince Group, describing it as “a significant transnational on-line playing syndicate based mostly in Cambodia”.
Cambodia’s ruling elite have been shut to Chen Zhi for years. The federal government has mentioned little because the US and UK sanctioned Prince Group, other than urging US and UK authorities to ensure they’d ample proof for his or her allegations.
By some estimates, scam companies might account for round half of the complete Cambodian economic system.
“I feel 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 mentioned it was surprising the Prince Group had been in a position to construct a “international footprint” with out elevating alarm bells, given the intense prison costs it now faces.
