This article first appeared in The Edge Malaysia Weekly on November 10, 2025 - November 16, 2025

IN the first six months of 2025, Malaysians lost RM1.12 billion to online scams. The amount is 41.7% more than a year ago, based on a prorate of 2024’s RM1.58 billion. The jump shows how aggressive perpetrators of the crime can be, or put another way, it exposes victims’ vulnerability. 

Yet, as large as these sums were, they are just a fraction of the US$12.5 billion (RM52.3 billion) to US$19 billion annual value of the scam industry in Cambodia, estimated by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the US Institute of Peace (USIP).

At US$12.5 billion, the scam industry is equivalent to 60% of Cambodia’s formal gross domestic product (see chart). The country is seen as the epicentre of global scamming operations — eclipsing Myanmar and Laos — with an estimated workforce of at least 100,000.

Given the financial losses from online scams and reports of Malaysians trafficked to work in scam compounds across these three countries, The Edge takes a closer look at the indictment unsealed by the US District Court for the Eastern District of New York (EDNY) on Oct 14. The indictment charges Chen Zhi, also known as Vincent, with wire fraud conspiracy and money laundering conspiracy for allegedly directing Prince Group’s operation of forced-labour scam compounds in Cambodia.

Chen is the founder and chairman of Prince Holding Group, a Cambodian conglomerate with interests in three core areas — estate development, financial services and customer services.

Chen, who remains at large, has been accused of running forced labour scam compounds across Cambodia through Prince Group and used “its vast network of business enterprises to launder its criminal proceeds”. It was further alleged that the scam compounds conducted cryptocurrency investment fraud schemes and other fraudulent schemes that resulted in billions of dollars in losses incurred by victims in the US and around the world.

According to the indictment by US Attorney for EDNY Joseph Nocella Jr, the fraudulent operations were carried out from around 2015 to the present.

“Chen and his co-conspirators used their political influence in multiple countries to protect their criminal enterprise and paid bribes to foreign public officials to avoid disruption by law enforcement. They subsequently laundered the proceeds of the fraudulent schemes through professional money laundering operations and through Prince Group’s own network of ostensibly legal business enterprises, including its online gambling and cryptocurrency mining operations,” the indictment read.

Prince Group’s key business units in Cambodia included Prince Real Estate Group, Prince Huan Yu Real Estate Group, Prince Bank and Awesome Global Investment Group. (Notably a handful of Malaysian former bankers held senior positions at Prince Bank.)

But in secret, the group “generated enormous profits for Chen from its illicit and fraudulent activities, coordinated by Chen and facilitated by a close network” of his top executives and associates, many were listed but not named in the court document.

Under Chen’s direction, Prince Group built and operated at least 10 scam compounds in Cambodia, in places such as Sihanoukville, Chrey Thom and in Kampong Speu Province. In fact, according to Nocella, Chen was directly involved in managing the scam compounds and maintained records associated with each one, including records tracking profits from the scams that explicitly reference “sha zhu” or pig-butchering.

Pig-butchering scams are online investment fraud schemes where unwitting victims are contacted through messaging or social media apps and then convinced to transfer cryptocurrency or other funds to specific accounts on the false promise of profits from investments made.

“In reality, the funds were misappropriated from the victims and laundered for the benefit of the perpetrators. Pig-butchering scams often relied on social engineering to earn victims’ trust to induce the fraudulent investments,” he added.

The indictment detailed the four stages typically involved in pig-butchering scams:

First, a perpetrator would use a fictitious identity and cold contact a victim on a messaging or social media application. Often, the perpetrator would pretend to have contacted the wrong number but would continue communicating with the victim.

Second, the perpetrator would establish a relationship and build trust with the victim by continuing to message the victim over days, weeks or months.

Third, the perpetrator would devise a narrative to induce the victim to send a series of payments in the form of virtual currency. Common narratives included lucrative investment opportunities, emergencies necessitating funds and romance scams. Many perpetrators would convince victims to use fraudulent websites or applications, controlled by scammers, to invest in virtual currency. Perpetrators coached victims through the investment process, showed them fake profits and encouraged them to invest more.

Fourth, the perpetrator would disengage the victim once their funds were stolen, generally cutting off all contact.

It noted that internal Prince Group documents included instructions on gaining the confidence of victims, guidance on how to register social media accounts in bulk, “including a direction to use profile photos of women who were not ‘too beautiful’, so that the accounts would appear genuine”.

The scam compounds targeted migrant workers who went to Cambodia looking for job opportunities but were instead trafficked and forced to work in these complexes executing fraudulent investment schemes, often “under the threat of violence”.

The scam compounds comprised “vast dormitories surrounded by high walls and barbed wire, and functioned as forced labour camps”.

The compounds were designed to maximise profits and Chen and his team made sure that they had the infrastructure “to reach as many victims as possible”. Examples cited included procuring millions of mobile telephone numbers and account passwords from an illicit online marketplace. Meanwhile, Chen’s documents depicted “phone farms” that are essentially automated call centres where the investment frauds are executed.

The documents mentioned two facilities staffed with 1,250 mobile phones that controlled 76,000 accounts on a popular social media platform.

Nocella also alleged that one of Chen’s co-conspirators had boasted in 2018 that Prince Group was earning over US$30 million a day from the fraudulent investment schemes and related illicit activities.

The indictment detailed ways in which Chen and his co-conspirators used their political influence to protect the scam operations from the tentacles of law from various countries, including China. “Among other things, Prince Group executives bribed public officials for information in advance of law enforcement raids of Prince Group scam compounds.”

As an example of Chen’s use of violence to achieve an objective, the indictment cited one instance where discussion between him and a Prince Group associate on beating a problematic individual at a compound. Chen approved of the beating and instructed that the individual not be “beaten to death”.

Chen laundered Prince Group’s illicit profits through complex money laundering networks, “including by enlisting the help of professional money laundering operations and by using Prince Group’s own businesses, including online gambling and cryptocurrency mining, to launder proceeds”.

It added that the funds were subsequently used for luxury travel and entertainment as well as to acquire expensive watches, yachts, private jets, vacation homes, high-end collectables and rare artwork, including a Picasso painting.

Proceeds from scam operations were funnelled back to Prince Group. “One common method was to collect scam proceeds in the form of bitcoin or stablecoins such as USDT or USDC and then off-ramp them into fiat currencies. The launderers then used that cash to purchase clean bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies.”

Meanwhile, CNA reported on Nov 1 that the Royal Malaysia Police are on the lookout for seven Malaysians wanted by Singapore authorities for their suspected involvement in a Cambodian scam syndicate. However, it is not clear if the syndicate refers to the one operated by Chen. 

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