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After nearly a month under U.S. and U.K. sanctions and the seizure of more than $15 billion in assets linked to its founder, Cambodian conglomerate Prince Group said it “categorically rejects” allegations that it or its chairman were involved in an industrial-scale online scam network built on forced labor.
Following the blacklisting in October, authorities across Europe, the United States and Asia launched a wave of asset confiscations targeting the conglomerate and its founder Chen Zhi, accused of running a transnational criminal organization.
Prince Group said in a Tuesday statement that the accusations were “baseless” and aimed at “justifying the unlawful seizure of assets worth billions of dollars.”
The statement, the company’s first direct response to the sanctions, came days after China’s cybersecurity agency accused the U.S. government of orchestrating the theft of about $13 billion worth of bitcoin. The funds were allegedly linked to a later $15 billion seizure of bitcoin that U.S. authorities said were criminal proceeds from Chen, who holds joint British-Cambodian nationality and is originally from China. He was charged in October with wire fraud conspiracy and money laundering.
The forfeiture was the largest in the Justice Department’s history. It has not said when or how the bitcoin was seized.
The coordinated sanctions from Washington and London targeted 146 entities linked to the Phnom Penh-based group, which operates across 30 countries with interests in real estate, financial services and consumer businesses. The measures cut it off from U.S. companies and exposed others to penalties for dealing with it.
Britain also froze business and property assets worth more than $130 million, while Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong carried out their own seizures, some as high as $350 million.
Prince Group said the allegations “have caused undue harm to thousands of innocent employees, partners and communities the Group serves.”
Prosecutors, however, accuse the company of running one of Asia’s largest transnational criminal organizations, operating online scam networks built on forced labor and targeting victims with romance and investment cons before laundering the proceeds through cryptocurrency.
As scam operations spread across the region in recent years, with Cambodia believed to host hundreds of scam compounds employing at least 100,000 trafficked or coerced workers from more than 20 countries and generating an estimated $12.5 billion to $19 billion annually, Prince Group was thrust into media investigations over its alleged role in the illicit industry.
The company said it has assembled a legal team from Boies Schiller Flexner, a high-profile U.S. law firm, according to its Tuesday statement.
Chen’s attorney Matthew L. Schwartz, chairman of Boies Schiller Flexner, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The U.S. Embassy in Cambodia declined to comment, referring inquiries to the Department of State.
Chen remained at large as of October, according to a statement from the U.S. Justice Department.
