The UK has frozen a £9 million penthouse in London as part of a sanctions drive against a network of scam centres in Southeast Asia. The Foreign Office announced the asset freeze alongside sanctions on individuals linked to the Prince Group, which is accused of operating fraudulent online romance and crypto scams.
Another property, a six-bedroom mansion near Hampstead Heath worth £8.5 million, has also been frozen. The penthouse is owned by Thet Li, a key lieutenant of Chen Zhi, the Prince Group chairman sanctioned last year. The mansion belongs to Wang Xiaoyan, wife of Zhu Zhongbiao, a director of companies tied to the scam centres.
The sanctions target individuals including Thet Li and Hu Xiaowei, a long-term associate of Chen Zhi who used multiple aliases. Two businesses, Xinbi and Legend Innovation Co, were also sanctioned for providing cryptocurrency services to scam compounds, including the #8 Park facility in Cambodia, believed to be the largest such centre.
Previous UK measures have frozen assets worth over £1 billion, including a £100 million City of London office block and a helicopter. Minister Stephen Doughty stated: 'Our sanctions today send a clear message: We will not allow British people to become victims of these dreadful scams or tolerate the awful human rights abuses perpetrated in these scam centres.'
Following the UK action, Cambodia launched its largest crackdown on the scam economy, raiding 2,500 sites, closing hundreds of centres, and freeing tens of thousands of foreign nationals trafficked into forced fraud.
