US, UK Sanction Cambodian Casino Empire Over Cyber Scams, Human Trafficking
Posted on: October 15, 2025, 04:25h.
Last updated on: October 15, 2025, 04:25h.
- US, UK target Cambodian crime syndicate in major sanctions.
- $15B bitcoin and London properties seized by authorities.
- Prince Group, Jin Bei linked to trafficking, online scams.
The US and UK governments have imposed sanctions on a Cambodian casino group and associated businesses alleged to be involved in cyber scams and human trafficking in the Southeast Asian nation. Authorities said they have also seized $15 billion in bitcoin and frozen London properties owned by the alleged leaders.
Those include China-born Chen Zhi, 38, chairman of the notorious Prince Group, which owns casinos, property developments, and a commercial bank in Cambodia. Chen is reportedly well-connected to the authoritarian state’s notoriously corrupt government and an advisor to Prime Minister Hun Manet.
The Prince Group was designated by the US Treasury Department Tuesday as a “transnational criminal organization” (TCO).
Jin Bei Group
Also included in Tuesday’s sanctions were the Jin Bei Group, a leisure and entertainment business linked to the Prince Group, whose properties include a flagship seven-story hotel and casino in the Cambodian tourist hub of Sihanoukville.
In 2022, a US federal investigation into a Chinese money-laundering network in New York uncovered that 259 Americans had collectively lost $18 million to scammers associated with the Jin Bei Group.
Jin Bei describes itself on its website as “the largest operator in the Kingdom of Cambodian [sic]” which is “spearheading the much anticipated exciting and diversified high-end entertainment option in Asia!”
It also claims that “employees are the foundation of the group’s [sic] and classified as the most important assets of the company.”
In a press release Tuesday, the US Treasury begged to differ, describing “industrial-scale trafficking, torture, and extortion of enslaved workers in furtherance of the operation of at least ten scam compounds in Cambodia.”
Rise of the Scam Compounds
In 2019, facing pressure from Beijing, the Cambodian government banned online casinos, forcing many to close. The criminal gangs filled the empty real-estate space with scam centers, luring workers with the promise of legitimate jobs, then holding them captive, and forcing them to work their cyberfraud schemes.
These include “pig butchering” scams in which victims are lured into putting large sums of money into phony investment plans. Amnesty International has accused the Cambodian government of being complicit in the scams.
[Workers] are subjected to barbaric methods of control at the hands of their captors including physical abuse, isolation, restriction of movement, arbitrary fines and fees, threats of sexual exploitation, and the confiscation of personal documents and electronics,” according to the Treasury Department. “In recent months, numerous reports have surfaced online of people enduring horrific treatment at sites associated with Prince Group TCO.”
The $15 billion bitcoin freeze is the largest such seizure made by the FBI. Other frozen assets include a $16 million mansion on Avenue Road – one of London’s most exclusive streets – a $126 million office building in the city’s financial district, and several apartments in central London.
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