UK Freezes Prince Group Finance Chief’s London Penthouse

British authorities have locked down a £8.9 million penthouse overlooking Buckingham Palace owned by Thet Li, the 39-year-old accused of serving as the illicit finance chief for Prince Group, a Cambodian conglomerate at the center of a sprawling global fraud and human trafficking network.

The freezing order on the 13th-floor apartment near St James’s Park, purchased in 2022, follows an investigation by the UK Foreign Office. A court hearing scheduled for Monday will determine whether British police can maintain control over £10.6 million worth of watches and jewelry seized from Li, along with £92,570 in cash.

Li’s London real estate footprint extends beyond the penthouse. Last October, police raided two properties on the Isle of Man linked to him during a joint operation with the FBI. Investigators allege Prince Group exploited gaming licenses obtained on the island to launder criminal proceeds.

The asset freezes are part of a broader transnational effort to dismantle the financial architecture supporting Southeast Asian scam compounds. The United Nations estimates more than 100,000 trafficked workers are currently forced to operate online fraud schemes across the region, frequently subjected to physical abuse and confinement. These operations rely heavily on “pig butchering” scams, where victims are groomed through fake romantic relationships before being manipulated into fraudulent cryptocurrency investments.

U.S. and British regulators have moved aggressively against the network’s leadership over the past year. The U.S. Treasury sanctioned Li in October 2025 alongside 145 other targets connected to Prince Group, designating him a “de facto illicit finance CFO” responsible for bulk cash smuggling. The UK followed in March, sanctioning Li under its global human rights regime for his role managing the organization’s international financial network.

The crackdown has ensnared Prince Group’s top executives. Chairman Chen Zhi faces freezing orders on a £12 million St John’s Wood mansion and a £100 million office building in the City of London. Chen was arrested in Cambodia and extradited to China. Wu An Ming, identified as Chen’s second-in-command, was reportedly arrested in Japan in June. UK authorities have frozen Wu’s assets, including a £30 million Holland Park mansion and a £53 million Belgravia townhouse registered to a woman alleged to be his wife.

Cryptocurrency remains central to both the fraud operations and the enforcement response. The U.S. government is pursuing the forfeiture of approximately $14 billion in Bitcoin tied to Prince Group. A Washington-based Scam Center Strike Force has reported $580 million in crypto seizures and freezes. To choke off the digital infrastructure facilitating these transactions, the UK also sanctioned Xinbi, a cryptocurrency marketplace allegedly used by Southeast Asian scam centers.

Unlike traditional organized crime syndicates that relied on shell companies in offshore banking havens, modern scam networks utilize decentralized digital assets to move billions of dollars rapidly across borders. This shift has forced law enforcement agencies to develop specialized blockchain tracking capabilities, making cases like the pursuit of Prince Group’s $14 billion Bitcoin cache unprecedented in scale for the Department of Justice.

Prince Group issued a statement last year categorically rejecting allegations that it or Chen Zhi engaged in unlawful activity. Interpol has formally classified the Southeast Asian scam compound network as a global threat.