The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has confiscated 127,271 Bitcoin — worth nearly $14 billion — from Chen Zhi, Chairman of Cambodia’s Prince Holding Group, in what officials call the largest digital asset seizure in DOJ history.
According to federal prosecutors in the Eastern District of New York, Chen Zhi — a Chinese-Cambodian national — faces charges of transnational fraud, money laundering, and operating forced-labor “scam compounds” in Cambodia.
Investigators allege that thousands of workers were trafficked from neighboring countries and forced to run crypto investment scams known as “pig butchering”, under violent and coercive conditions inside walled compounds surrounded by barbed wire.
“Prince Group was little more than a corporate façade for an industrial-scale cybercrime empire,” prosecutors wrote.
A Hidden Financial Empire
A U.S. Treasury investigation by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) uncovered a web of over 100 shell companies linked to Prince Group across multiple countries. These entities allegedly handled illicit transfers, property purchases, and crypto exchanges designed to disguise criminal proceeds.
Chen’s top aides — including Guy Chhay, Ing Dara, Zhu Zhongbiao (“Jack Zhu”), and Karen Chen — were named as nominal directors of these entities, managing international wire transfers and crypto wallets under Chen’s direction.
The system operated as “a parallel financial empire,” according to OFAC, simultaneously laundering money and funneling funds back into scam operations across Cambodia, Myanmar, and Laos.
The Role of Huione Group
Parallel investigations identified Huione Group, another Cambodian-based conglomerate, as a “primary laundering hub” for Chen’s network.
Between 2021 and early 2025, Huione allegedly processed more than $4 billion in criminal proceeds, using e-wallets, exchange services, and intermediaries to obscure money trails.
Blockchain analytics firms Chainalysis and TRM Labs traced Chen’s on-chain activity through a sophisticated “spray-and-funnel” laundering method — dispersing Bitcoin into hundreds of temporary wallets before reconsolidating it into core addresses.
Despite these obfuscation efforts, forensic algorithms were able to cluster the patterns and link all transactions back to Prince Group-controlled wallets.
How the U.S. Seized the Bitcoin
The DOJ’s three-step operation involved:
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On-chain tracing — Using blockchain data to “lock” the flow of funds.
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Financial sanctions — OFAC blacklisted Chen and his network; the FinCEN 311 rule cut off access to U.S. dollar clearing systems.
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Judicial forfeiture — U.S. authorities lawfully seized Chen’s private keys and hardware wallets, transferring 127,271 Bitcoin into government-controlled wallets.
The seizure proves, analysts say, that crypto assets are not immune to law enforcement once sufficient technical and legal leverage is applied.
A $14 Billion Question
The Bitcoin, now held in custody by the DOJ, could become part of the proposed U.S. National Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, an idea supported by several lawmakers.
However, legal experts warn that restitution for victims across multiple countries could delay any reallocation of the assets for years.
Chen Zhi’s current whereabouts remain unknown.
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