What happened
On 14 October 2025 the Department of Justice unsealed a wire fraud and money laundering conspiracy indictment in Brooklyn against Chen Zhi, founder and chairman of Cambodia's Prince Holding Group, and announced the seizure of approximately 127,271 bitcoin worth about $15 billion. Prosecutors said Prince Group ran dozens of forced-labour scam compounds across Cambodia, ringed with high walls and barbed wire, where trafficked workers were confined and made to run cryptocurrency investment fraud against victims worldwide. One Brooklyn-based network alone handled fraudulent transfers from over 250 New York victims.
How the deception worked
Workers inside the compounds contacted strangers through messaging apps and social media using fabricated personas, opening with an apparent wrong number or a friendly cold approach. Over weeks or months they built a personal relationship, often romantic, before introducing a cryptocurrency investment opportunity backed by a fake trading platform that displayed rising balances and permitted small early withdrawals to prove legitimacy. Victims were then pressed to deposit progressively larger sums, and any attempt to withdraw triggered demands for taxes or fees. The compound operators tracked which schemes ran from which rooms and logged the profits.
AI involvement · Unknown
The indictment does not attribute the schemes to AI tooling, though contemporaneous reporting on the sector describes AI-assisted personas.
The control that would have caught it· our reading, not a claim from the sources
Banks and exchanges need behavioural interdiction for customers making escalating transfers to newly seen crypto addresses after prolonged online-only relationships, since the victim will defend the transaction when asked directly.
Sources (2)
- Chairman of Prince Group Indicted for Operating Cambodian Forced Labor Scam CompoundsU.S. Department of Justice·justice.govOpen ↗
- U.S. and U.K. Take Largest Action Ever Targeting Cybercriminal Networks in Southeast AsiaU.S. Department of the Treasury·home.treasury.govOpen ↗
This entry summarises public reporting. It is not a legal finding, and details can change as investigations conclude. Found an error? Send a correction.