Singapore Freezes $150M in Assets Tied to Alleged Bitcoin Fraud Kingpin

The Singapore police froze over S$150 million (approximately $106 million) in assets linked to Chen Zhi, the Chinese-born chairman of Cambodia’s Prince Holding Group, during enforcement operations conducted on October 30.

According to Caixin, the action targets six properties, bank accounts, securities holdings, cash, a yacht, 11 vehicles, and numerous bottles of alcohol owned by Chen and his associates, who are currently not in Singapore.

The seizure follows a coordinated international enforcement effort that began in mid-October, when U.S. and UK authorities announced criminal indictments against Chen and moved to confiscate approximately $14.4 billion worth of Bitcoin tied to what prosecutors describe as one of Asia’s most sophisticated transnational fraud operations.

From Mining Empire to Criminal Network

Chen founded Prince Holding Group in 2015, officially operating in real estate, finance, and hospitality across more than 30 countries.

Federal prosecutors allege the conglomerate evolved into a criminal enterprise that lured thousands of workers to Cambodia with false job offers, then trapped them in heavily guarded compounds where they were forced to run “pig butchering” scams.

These long-term online fraud schemes target victims by grooming them before tricking them into fake crypto trading platforms.

U.S. court documents reveal the network laundered stolen proceeds through more than 100 shell companies worldwide, routing funds through crypto exchanges and mining operations before converting them into Bitcoin.

Between May 2021 and August 2022, investigators traced at least $18 million from over 250 U.S. victims through entities operating in Brooklyn and Queens, representing just a fraction of the billions channeled back to Cambodia.

The U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned 146 individuals and entities associated with the Prince Group in October, while the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network accused the Cambodia-based Huione Group of laundering at least $4 billion in illicit proceeds.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent described the measures as “a global response to a global crime,” addressing losses exceeding $16 billion for American victims alone.

At the same time, UK authorities also imposed sanctions on Chen and several affiliates of the Prince Holding Group.

Dormant Bitcoin Stirs Fresh Mystery

Just 24 hours after the DOJ announcement, a wallet linked to the Chinese mining pool LuBian, previously connected to Chen’s operations, transferred 11,886 BTC, worth approximately $1.3 billion, after more than three years of dormancy.

One week later, the same entity moved an additional 15,959 BTC, valued at $1.83 billion, to four different addresses, sparking speculation about whether the transfers were for defensive repositioning or strategic reallocation.

Arkham Intelligence revealed in August that 127,426 BTC, now worth approximately $14.5 billion, was stolen from LuBian in December 2020 through vulnerabilities in its private key generation system.

The pool vanished by February 2021 without explanation, having lost over 90% of its holdings, with most coins remaining dormant until July 2024.

LuBian had risen quickly in early 2020 to become the sixth-largest mining pool, promoting itself as “the safest high-yielding mining pool in the world.”

However, it was attacked, and over 90% of its Bitcoin was drained on December 28, 2020.

U.S. prosecutors allege Chen and his associates laundered illicit proceeds through large-scale mining operations, including Warp Data in Laos and LuBian, which court filings claim “produced large sums of clean Bitcoin dissociated from criminal proceeds.”

The DOJ’s forfeiture claims, if successful, would mark one of the largest additions to U.S. government Bitcoin holdings, which Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent estimated in August at between $15 billion and $20 billion.

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