How one cyber-scamming syndicate used Singapore for legitimacy
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…
Unmasked: Scam kingpin Chen Zhi’s top associates held significant cache of assets in Singapore
SINGAPORE – They were identified in a criminal indictment filed in New York on Oct 8, 2025, as the co-conspirators of scam kingpin Chen Zhi, with few clues about where they lived and operated.
Over the past six months, The Straits Times, working with investigative journalism group Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), combed through hundreds of pages of official records to unmask the second co-conspirator, a key figure in the multi-billion dollar scam syndicate.
The search uncovered a global web of shell companies, and revealed the sophisticated system used by Chen Zhi and his company Prince Holding Group to launder billions of dollars in funds obtained on the back of foreigners forced to work in scam compounds in Cambodia.
Co-conspirator 2 is Chen Xing. Born in Shanghai in 1986, he changed his name to Chen Sokly after obtaining Cambodian citizenship around the end of 2017, according to the Cambodian government gazette.
ST and OCCRP confirmed his identity by matching details of his corporate history across jurisdictions, his acquired citizenships in Cambodia and Cyprus, and his former places of residences in Singapore and the United States.
Like many others in the Prince Group network, Sokly created multiple identities across jurisdictions. In some circles in Singapore, he was known as the wealthy businessman Martin Chen.
The indictment, which led to the forfeiture of 127,271 bitcoins by the US government valued at around US$15 billion at the time, came six days before the US dropped sanctions against Chen Zhi, the Prince Holding Group and its affiliates in one of the largest financial fraud takedowns in history.
Three Singaporeans and 17 Singapore-registered entities were among those added to the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons list.
Chen Zhi, who was born in China, was identified as the head of a global crime syndicate that engaged in investment fraud and money laundering.
The enforcer
According to the indictment, Chen Zhi had enlisted Sokly to preside over the syndicate’s risk control function.
Sokly once resided in Singapore, but is believed to be currently in the US.
He was tasked with monitoring any investigations by law enforcement agencies into the group’s activities, and to engage in corrupt bargaining with foreign officials to advance the group’s interests.
Prosecutors in the indictment alleged that sometime in May 2023, Sokly allegedly communicated with a government official in China who promised that he could get Prince Group associates “off the hook” for any trouble they run into.
In exchange, Sokly promised to take care of the official’s son.
Prosecutors said Sokly even directed a Chinese official to have local police officers extort businesses on behalf of the Prince Group.
He was so confident of his contact that he dismissed the scam compound crackdown in Cambodia, saying nothing would happen to the Prince Group.
The documents showed Chen Zhi and Sokly, a trusted lieutenant, would discuss at length about how many officials Sokly had in his pocket.
A ledger of bribes allegedly kept by Chen Zhi, and uncovered by US authorities, showed that in 2019, Sokly purchased a yacht valued at more than US$3 million for a foreign government official.
Sokly also allegedly used violence to maintain the group’s dominance over scam operators.
In July 2024, Chen Zhi told another associate to contact Sokly. The boss wanted his enforcer to handle a member of the group who had stolen money from them.
The indictment showed Sokly would sometimes brag about the network’s reach. He once boasted that the global syndicate was raking in US$30 million a day through illicit activities.
According to California property records obtained by ST and OCCRP, Sokly bought a home in the state in 2019 from Fang Zhizhen, a member of the Knight Attack Group, a cybercriminal syndicate in China which predated the Prince Group.
Fang was among nine individuals and 26 entities identified in the same OFAC sanctions over their alleged links to Prince Group.
Sokly sold that home in 2024 for around US$4.5 million.
Property records also showed that he transferred ownership of a separate US$4 million property to his wife on Nov 4, 2025, a few weeks after sweeping sanctions were meted out on Prince Group. That property was placed in a trust operated by his wife in December 2025.
In 2017, Sokly announced his arrival in Singapore with the purchase of an $11 million, 5,694 sq ft apartment at 10 Leedon Heights.
A few months later, he incorporated his first Singapore company, M Capital Global Holdings, and invested just over $5 million in equal parts with his wife.
The couple continue to be the company’s shareholders in Singapore today.
He then spent the next two years registering himself as a director of at least 16 firms in Singapore. His name was removed from most of the firms between 2020 and 2023.
The firms that listed Sokly as director shared an address in Shenton Way, which ST visited. An electronic building directory showed two companies occupying an office on the 12th floor, with no apparent links to Sokly.
Former employees, who declined to be named, said Sokly typically spent between two and three months in Singapore in a year, and liked to pass time in the evenings by drinking with his associates, including Chen Zhi.
He owned a fleet of cars, including a Bentley and a luxury seven-seater, which he kept at his Leedon Heights home.
One former employee said Sokly’s son was enrolled in an international school in Singapore at the time.
Employees also spoke of how Sokly would travel with his entourage when on holiday to destinations such as Europe for a month. The businessman would pay for everything, including the flights and accommodations.
Around the same time he was busy establishing himself in Singapore, Sokly started a network of companies overseas.
In 2018, he became the chairman of Awesome Global Investment Group in Cambodia, a company which Chen Zhi established a year earlier. Sokly subsequently used the Awesome brand and M Capital to expand his list of companies.
About two years later, he established several firms in the US, according to business records in California. They included multiple companies named Awesome and M Capital.
ST and OCCRP reached out to Sokly on various platforms but he did not respond to requests for comments.
The banker
Around the same time the US announced sweeping sanctions on the Prince Group, government agencies also severed financial links to Cambodia-based Huione Group.
The US authorities alleged that the financial services firm had served as a money laundering central for transnational criminal organisations.
On June 23, the US Justice Department announced it had seized a cloud computing account used by subsidiaries of Huione Group which allegedly hosted backend infrastructure for the network.
Huione Group is accused of laundering at least US$4 billion worth of illicit proceeds between August 2021 and January 2025.
According to the US Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), Huione has significant exposure to suspected fraud activities, including convertible virtual currency (CVC) investment scams – also known as pig-butchering.
“FinCEN assesses that Huione Group’s extensive CVC services and its online marketplace, Haowang Guarantee, has made Huione Group a ‘one-stop shop’ for criminals to launder CVC obtained through illicit activities, and ultimately convert it to fiat currency,” said FinCEN in May 2025.
Huione Group is said to have received at least US$36 million in CVC investment scam proceeds since August 2021.
That number goes up to US$300 million if including other cyberscam variants, based on non-public information analysed by the US agency.
Broadly, FinCEN said illicit actors send CVC to Huione, who then converts the proceeds to fiat currency or a different virtual currency, before moving them to a different digital wallet as part of the money laundering process.
Like Chen Zhi, who was caught and extradited to China in January, the former chairman of Huione, Li Xiong, was similarly arrested and extradited to Beijing in April.
Checks by ST and OCCRP reveal that Sokly is directly linked to Huione. His Cambodian firm LM Car had in 2022 entered a joint venture with Huione Technology in Phnom Penh. He is also closely tied to two associates linked to the former Huione leader.
Corporate records in Cambodia show Li Xiong was part of a real estate firm, Cocosili Investment, together with two Chinese nationals Dai An and Xiong Huajun.
The Cambodian firm shares the same Phnom Penh address with Huione subsidiary, Huione Life Insurance.
Dai was on June 23 sanctioned by the OFAC for his alleged links to Prince Group. Described as a “high-level leader” in the organisation, he received his Cambodian citizenship in 2017 together with Sokly, changing his name legally from Dai Dewen to Dai An.
Singapore connection
ST visited two companies in Singapore that listed Dai as a director on June 17 – a family office and investment management firm – registered to Parkview Square, but found an unrelated finance firm at the unit.
On July 21, Dai responded to ST and OCCRP through an e-mail address he used to register a Cambodian firm.
“I am writing to tell you the plain truth regarding the matters you raised.
“The honest truth is that I have absolutely no involvement, connection or knowledge regarding this company’s activities,” he said in response to queries about his involvement in multiple companies linked to Sokly and Xiong Huajun.
Dai said he was registered as a director in the companies for “administrative credentials”. He said he did not participate in any of the companies’ activities and claimed that he did not receive any money.
“The matters, transactions or allegations you mentioned in your e-mail are completely foreign to me. I had zero knowledge that these things were happening,” he added.
But Dai may have been more than just an administrative convenience. In 2017, he became Sokly’s neighbour after he purchased the apartment directly above in Leedon Heights for $6.15 million.
Meanwhile, property records showed Xiong had purchased a luxury apartment in Nassim Road in 2019 for $18.8 million.
A 2018 Mauritius registration document showed Xiong had formerly used a 14 Leedon Heights address in Singapore.
That unit changed hands to another Chinese national in 2024. Xiong did not respond to requests for comments.
In 2023, Sokly, Dai and Xiong were all listed as the ultimate beneficiary owners of a Mauritius-based fund, the Oceanic Opportunity Fund PCC, that provided Prince Bank with millions of dollars in loans.
The same fund also invested in Chen Zhi’s Singapore investment vehicle, Skyline Investment Management, until at least 2021.
In 2018, all three were also found to be involved in a Mauritius-based firm, Meritwise Group Public, along with Singaporeans Karen Chen Xiuling and Cliff Teo Kang Yeow.
A warrant of arrest from the Singapore police remains out for Karen Chen, who is closely tied to Chen Zhi in Singapore and Taiwan. Cliff Teo is on the run from the authorities in Taiwan, who are probing his connection to Chen Zhi and Prince Group subsidiaries in Taipei.
Flight records obtained by OCCRP and seen by ST also revealed that on April 23, 2019, Sokly flew to Palau and stayed at the Palau Pacific Resort.
With him on the same flight were Dai and Xiong. All three had flown in on Hu Xiaowei’s private jet.
Hu Xiaowei, who goes by many monikers, was sanctioned by the US and UK in October 2025 for his alleged role in Prince Group, where he is described as second-in-command to Chen Zhi. He had flown into Palau just one day earlier.
On June 23, the OFAC formally sanctioned all of Hu Xiaowei’s known aliases, including Chen Xiao’er, Hu Shi and Wu An Ming.
https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/courts-crime/unmasked-scam-kingpin-chen-zhis-top-associates-held-significant-cache-of-assets-in-singapore