The chairman of Prince Group, indicted over online scams, and his associates took advantage of Singapore’s reputation as a stable and predictable financial capital.

Singapore's central business district skyline in May. (Edgar Su/Reuters)

SINGAPORE — The co-working space, up on the eighth floor of one of this city-state’s many nondescript office buildings, included a few unique perks: a pool table, karaoke room and private cigar bar.

It was also a front for about a dozen companies that helped launder money on behalf of one of the biggest transnational crime syndicates in Asia, according to U.S. prosecutors, and one that allegedly made its billions by forcing trafficked migrant workers to scam people online.

The United States and British governments this month took their most significant action against the cyberscam industry when they sanctioned Prince Holding Group, one of Cambodia’s biggest conglomerates, and its chairman, Chen Zhi, and froze their assets in both countries. Chen was also criminally indicted in New York.

There were properties in London: a $16 million mansion, a $133 million office and 17 flats, according to the U.K. government. There was at least $15 billion worth of bitcoin in the United States, according to prosecutors, amounting to almost a third of Cambodia’s gross domestic product and the largest criminal forfeiture action in the Justice Department’s history. There were real estate investments as far as Palau in the Pacific Ocean, according to the U.S. Treasury Department, where Prince Group had leased an island, as reported by The Washington Post in July.

But it was the criminal syndicate’s connections to Singapore, a financial capital known for its stable and predictable business environment, that most helped Prince Group legitimize itself. The sanctions and the allegations raised in the indictment underscore the city-state’s role in enabling cyberscamming, a multibillion-dollar criminal industry that has become entrenched in Southeast Asia.

These criminal syndicates lure people around the world into industrial-sized compounds where they are then forced to trick people into fake romances and investment schemes, according to victims interviewed by The Post, researchers, prosecutors in Chen’s case and others. The industry is led by Chinese organized crime syndicates, researchers say.

As part of that action, more than a dozen Singapore entities and three Singaporeans were sanctioned by Treasury. One of these Singaporeans was described as a “co-conspirator” of Chen’s, working as one of his top executives as he oversaw these cyberscam compounds in Cambodia, according to the indictment. Workers were sometimes beaten into compliance.

‘Singapore washing’

Apart from the companies and individuals named by Treasury, several other Singaporean individuals and companies played critical roles in shaping Prince Group’s image and corporate strategy, according to The Post’s reporting.

These include Gabriel Tan, who was the conglomerate’s head of communications and also led the Prince Foundation, which claimed to be its charitable arm, and Edward Lee, who was the head of Prince Group’s real estate arm.

Lee and Tan — who previously handled media inquiries for Prince Group but has updated his LinkedIn profile to say he is on a “career break” — did not respond to requests for comment. Both were also named in a bill proposed to Congress last month as individuals who should be sanctioned for enabling cyberscams.

A Singaporean law firm, Duane Morris & Selvam LLP, separately acted as Prince Group’s legal representative in rebutting media outlets and individuals who connected the company with illicit activity. The law firm issued a series of public joint statements with Prince Group refuting Radio Free Asia’s reporting on the company last year, and was as recently as June threatening a defamation suit against Jacob Sims, a visiting fellow at Harvard University who has also investigated the company, according to a copy seen by The Post.

A spokeswoman for Duane Morris & Selvam said the firm no longer represents Prince Group, declining to elaborate on when the relationship started or ended.

Prince Group, analysts say, represents the latest and among the most egregious examples of Singapore’s relatively lax business environment being utilized for illicit activity, whether sidestepping American export controls, moving sanctioned crude oil or, most recently, moving profits earned from cyberscamming.

A nighttime view of Singapore this month. (Roslan Rahman/AFP/Getty Images)

In Washington, some lawmakers coined a term — “Singapore washing” — to describe the practice of Chinese companies using Singapore to circumvent U.S. scrutiny amid heightened geopolitical tensions.

It is a “pattern of behavior that has more to do with the Singapore ecosystem as a whole,” said Ja Ian Chong, an associate professor of political science at the National University of Singapore. “The relative secrecy and lack of a more active press makes it easy for companies to hide here, whether for legitimate or less legitimate reasons.”

The Singapore Prime Minister’s Office referred The Post to the Ministry of Home Affairs, which provided a summary of Singapore’s anti-scam efforts, detailing efforts to preemptively block scams locally and cross-border efforts that saw 32,000 bank accounts frozen and $20 million recovered locally between May and June of this year. Singapore, the home affairs ministry added, is also considering caning as a punishment for scam-related offenses.

The Singapore Police Force, additionally, said it is “looking into the case” of Prince Group and is in contact with foreign counterparts.

The Prime Minister’s Office declined to comment on additional questions specific to the phenomenon of “Singapore washing” and on Singapore’s role in enabling transnational criminal syndicates.

Political connections

Little is known about how 38-year-old Chen, who is originally from Fujian province in China but has become a Cambodian citizen, first amassed his wealth.

The website of one of his now-sanctioned Singapore-based companies, an asset management firm that claimed to be registered by the Monetary Authority of Singapore, the city-state’s central bank, describes him as a “young business prodigy” who “started assisting his father in their family business in 1980s Shenzhen.” (Chen would have been 3 years old in 1990.)

The Monetary Authority of Singapore said in an email after this story was published that the firm, DW Capital Holdings, is not licensed under them.

The website, which was taken offline after The Post made inquiries, said Chen set up internet cafes in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen at the start of the digital age, and used the profits to invest in real estate in Cambodia — building his “empire” there.

According to U.S. prosecutors, Chen and Prince Group’s criminal activities date back to at least 2015. Their legitimate businesses became cover for fraud, the indictment said, as they “used their political influence in multiple countries” to protect themselves.

In Cambodia, Chen is among the most politically connected tycoons, serving first as an adviser to Cambodia’s Interior Ministry and later to former prime minister Hun Sen and his son Hun Manet, the current prime minister. He has been honored with the title Neak Oknha, the equivalent to an English lord.

When Cambodia hosted the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Summit in 2022, a subsidiary of Prince Group made limited-edition luxury watches for Hun Sen, who gifted them to world leaders attending. Prince Horology could not be reached for comment.

Vehicles drive past the Prince International Plaza in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, on Oct. 15. (Tang Chhin Sothy/AFP/Getty Images)

Touch Sokhak, a spokesman for Cambodia’s Interior Ministry, declined to comment on the links between Chen and Cambodia’s leadership.

“Cambodia will cooperate, in accordance with the law, with all legitimate requests” from foreign counterparts, he said. “However, that does not mean we are accusing Prince [Group] or Chen Zhi of committing the crimes alleged by the U.S. or the UK.”

Chen’s influence went beyond Cambodia. According to the indictment, he was able to get information in advance of raids on scam compounds by bribing officials from China’s Ministry of Public Security and Ministry of State Security. The ministries did not respond to request for comment.

On one occasion around July 2023, prosecutors alleged, one of Chen’s associates directed a Chinese law enforcement official to extort businesses on behalf of Prince Group. Beijing has led a high-profile crackdown on these forced-labor compounds in the region, recently sentencing 11 scam compound leaders to death for running similar operations in Myanmar.

But if political connections in Cambodia and China were critical to Prince Group’s ability to amass an astronomical level of wealth, it was Singapore that then played a significant role in helping launder and legitimize that money, according to a review of the indictment, the Treasury sanctions, and corporate records of the Singapore-registered companies and people who have investigated Prince Group in recent years.

Efforts to present themselves as legitimate businesses there were so successful that, just last December, the Nanyang Technological University of Singapore, one of the city’s three biggest universities, partnered with the Prince Foundation on an overseas learning program focused on expanding access to education and entrepreneurship.

NTU was also advertising an internship at Belt Road Capital Management, a now-sanctioned private equity firm that invested Chen’s money in projects across the region.

An university spokesperson said NTU partnered with Prince Group or its subsidiaries in 2022, 2023 and 2024 on a three-week overseas program “where students work with companies to solve real business challenges.” But, in response to questions from The Post, they said the university does not have an ongoing collaboration with the group.

Separately, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Singapore government’s investment firm, Temasek Group, partnered with a Prince Group subsidiary to draw up a master plan for a planned “eco-city” in Sihanoukville on Cambodia’s coast.

Temasek, in a statement, said the relationship between its subsidiary, SJ Group, and the Prince Group project ended in 2022.

Some of Chen’s associates in Singapore were not discreet about flaunting their access to the world of the super wealthy.

Nigel Tang Wan Bao Nabil, a 32-year-old Singaporean who was also sanctioned by the U.S. for his connections to Chen, showcased a luxurious life at sea on his Instagram, sailing yachts for clients whose identities have not been disclosed. He gave a tour of one of these boats, a 177-foot superyacht, when it went on sale last year for $17.8 million. He also hosted events at the Singapore co-working space, featuring high-end tequilas, mezcals and other rare spirits, according to Instagram and LinkedIn posts.

Tang’s yacht management company and storage solutions company were also sanctioned by the U.S., and share the same address as the co-working space.

These individuals have scrambled to either remove or clean up their public profiles since the U.K. and U.S. government announcements this month. Tang’s Instagram and LinkedIn profiles have been deleted. Tang could not be reached for comment.

When a Post reporter visited the co-working space two days after the sanctions announcement, its lights were off, and no one answered the door. Two people inside hid behind a kitchen island. An Italian wine and photography event that was meant to be held at the space this Wednesday was canceled, without explanation.

Source: The Washington Post