Hong Kong —

He is a baby-faced tycoon who rose to the highest echelons of power in his adopted home of Cambodia, where he bestows scholarships and runs philanthropy programs while overseeing one of the country’s largest and best-connected conglomerates.

But behind this façade, Chen Zhi, 37, runs one of the largest transnational criminal organizations in Asia, US authorities say, an empire fueled by forced labor and cryptocurrency scams that at one point were allegedly earning Chen and his associates $30 million every day.

The money went on buying Picasso artwork, private jets and properties in upscale neighborhoods of London, as well as supplying bribes to public officials, according to prosecutors in New York, who last week announced they had seized $15 billion in cryptocurrency from Chen following a years-long investigation.

That action has thrown a rare light on an alleged kingpin of Southeast Asia’s murky and criminal world of online scams, which US authorities say operate under the protection of powerful politicians, and conned victims in the US alone out of at least $10 billion dollars last year.

Chen’s Prince Group employs thousands of people and bills itself as one of the biggest conglomerates in Cambodia, with investments in luxury real estate, banking services, hotels, major construction developments, grocery stores and even luxury watches.

But last week, the company was declared a transnational criminal organization by United States authorities, and Chen was charged in absentia in New York with money laundering conspiracy and wire fraud conspiracy, along with several associates.

He is still at large, and currently faces no legal threat in Cambodia, which has no extradition treaty with the US.

Cambodia's Hun Sen, then the prime minister, meets a delegation of investors including Prince Group chairman Chen Zhi at the Peace Palace in Phnom Penh, Cambodia on April 25, 2022. Hun Sen’s official media page/Facebook

Prince Group, American and British authorities allege, was the umbrella for more than 100 shell companies and entities allegedly used to funnel laundered cash across 12 countries and territories from Singapore to St Kitts and Nevis.

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