By Patricia Kowsmann
The U.S. government on Tuesday designated a Cambodian conglomerate as a transnational criminal organization, accusing it of running online scam operations that have victimized people across the U.S.
The move against Phnom Penh-based Prince Group carries sanctions that make it a pariah internationally. U.S. companies and individuals can't do business with it, and others who do are subject to sanctions. Any U.S. property is blocked.
The Treasury Department said Prince has created and operated compounds in Cambodia where scammers target victims online, build their trust and walk away with their money. One term for the scams is pig butchering, because the scammers "fatten up" their targets by entangling them in romantic relationships online and dangling bogus financial schemes, then "butcher" them by disappearing with their money.
Industrial-scale scam compounds have sprouted across Southeast Asia, and Cambodia has become one of the epicenters. According to a U.S. government estimate, Americans lost at least $10 billion to scams originating from the region in 2024, a 66% increase over the previous year.
Billions in dollars of revenue from the scam operations allowed Prince to build a business empire, with investments in real estate, entertainment and banking, the Treasury said.
It sanctioned more than 100 entities and several individuals associated with Prince, including the 38-year-old chairman and chief executive officer of the holding company, Chen Zhi, who has extensive clout in Cambodia. Some of the entities are registered in other countries, including the British Virgin Islands, Taiwan and Singapore. Zhi's luxury yacht is managed by a holding company registered in Singapore, according to the Treasury.
Prince has denied any links to the scam industry in the past. On its website it says Zhi has transformed Prince into "a leading business group in Cambodia that adheres to international standards, invests in the future of the Kingdom and is committed to sustainable business practices."
The group says on its website that it has a commercial bank called Prince Bank and that one of its real-estate arms is developing a 47-story tower in Phnom Penh, Cambodia's capital.
Zhi, who renounced his Chinese citizenship to become a Cambodian citizen, has a charitable foundation and has started a scholarship program bearing his name in conjunction with the Cambodian ministry of education, according to the website.
The Treasury said the move was its largest to date targeting scam compounds in Southeast Asia, and that it coordinated with U.K. authorities.
Scam enterprises employ hundreds of thousands of people, some of whom are themselves victims of human trafficking and kept in scam compounds by force.
The Treasury said Prince also profited from other scams, including sextortion -- in which victims are blackmailed over sexually explicit materials, often created by artificial intelligence -- as well as corruption, illegal gambling and human trafficking. The group operates at least 10 scam compounds in Cambodia, the Treasury said.
An industry has developed to support the scams and launder the money they bring in. The Wall Street Journal profiled a Cambodian marketplace called Huione, where merchants sell everything from lists of potential victims to technology for creating fake personas online to money-laundering services.
The Treasury in May said it would move to block Huione from accessing the U.S. financial system. It said Tuesday that it had finalized that plan.
Write to Patricia Kowsmann at patricia.kowsmann@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
October 14, 2025 10:10 ET (14:10 GMT)
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