Mentioned in This Article
1. UK Freezes Thet Li's London Penthouse
British authorities have frozen a London penthouse belonging to Thet Li, the alleged finance chief of Cambodia-based Prince Group, in the latest Prince Group asset freeze announced on Sunday, October 11. The apartment, which looks toward Buckingham Palace, was bought for £8.9 million, roughly $12 million. A court is due to hear a further request on Monday covering watches, jewelry and cash.
Li, who is 39, paid £8.9 million in 2022 for a 13th-floor apartment close to St James's Park in central London. The freezing order was placed on the property's Land Registry record after an investigation by the UK Foreign Office. A freeze does not transfer ownership, but it prevents the owner from selling or borrowing against the property while the case continues.
The action adds to a growing list of British measures against Prince Group, a conglomerate that Western governments describe as a front for large-scale online fraud. Prince Group denies the accusations.
2. Who Is Thet Li?
Thet Li is described by UK authorities as a "key lieutenant" to the leader of Prince Group, and as someone who "managed the Prince Group's international financial network." The group's chairman is Chen Zhi.
The United States Treasury sanctioned Li in October 2025, naming him among 146 targets connected to Prince Group. Treasury called him a "de facto illicit finance CFO" who was involved in "bulk cash smuggling and managing dirty money."
The United Kingdom followed in March, sanctioning Li under its global human rights regime. British officials pointed to his links with Chen Zhi and Prince Group, whose scam centers in Cambodia, the UK says, subject workers to forced labor and cruel treatment.
Because the accusations come from governments rather than from a court verdict, Li remains an alleged figure in the case. The sanctions and freezing orders are administrative and investigative measures, and the latest steps do not amount to a conviction. Readers should treat the descriptions of his role as the position of the authorities, which Prince Group disputes.
Sanctions of this kind have practical weight even before any trial. Designated individuals are generally cut off from banks and payment providers in the jurisdictions that impose them, and businesses are barred from dealing with them. That is why a sanctions designation is often followed by property action: once an owner is listed, officials can look for assets in their territory that can be frozen.
3. What Is Prince Group Accused Of?
The UK describes Prince Group as a front for "industrial scale" online fraud. The activity it points to includes romance scams and investment scams, a category often called pig butchering, in which victims are befriended online and then persuaded to put money into fake trading platforms, frequently involving cryptocurrency.
Estimates from the United Nations suggest that more than 100,000 trafficked workers are forced to work in Prince Group's operations. Those workers are held in compounds in Southeast Asia, where, according to the UK and other governments, they are made to run the scams that target victims in other countries.
Prince Group has rejected the allegations. Last year the company said it "categorically rejects the notion" that it or Chen Zhi "has engaged in any unlawful activity." That position remains its public stance as asset freezes and sanctions multiply.
Interpol has called the network of scam compounds a global threat. The label reflects the cross-border nature of the problem: victims live in one country, the compounds sit in another and the money moves through bank accounts, property and digital assets in a third.
4. Other London Assets Linked to Prince Group
The penthouse is not the only London property caught up in the case. Freezing orders also cover a £12 million mansion in St John's Wood and a £100 million office building in the City of London. Both are tied to Chen Zhi, the Prince Group chairman. Chen was arrested in Cambodia and extradited to China.
Assets connected to Wu An Ming, described as Chen's alleged second in command, have also been frozen. They include a £30 million mansion in Holland Park and a £53 million townhouse in Belgravia that is registered to a woman alleged to be Wu's wife. Wu was reportedly arrested in Japan in June.
Taken together, the properties named so far are worth more than £200 million at the prices listed, a sum that shows how much of the alleged proceeds may have been placed in prime London real estate. Property is a common destination for illicit funds because it holds value, can be bought through intermediaries and is often less visible than cash.
The scale of the frozen holdings also explains why the case draws attention in the United Kingdom specifically. London's property market is a long-standing destination for overseas wealth, and the government has been under pressure to show that it can identify and restrain assets linked to serious crime. Each freezing order named in this case, from the penthouse to the City office building, is a test of that ability, and of how quickly the courts will act once the authorities have made their case.
5. How Does the $14 Billion Bitcoin Seizure Fit In?
The United States has moved to seize about $14 billion in bitcoin tied to Prince Group, a forfeiture effort that is among the largest involving cryptocurrency. The London freezes are part of the same international campaign, but they concern property and cash rather than digital assets.
A Washington-based Scam Center Strike Force has reported $580 million in crypto seizures and freezes. That figure is far smaller than the $14 billion sought in the forfeiture, a gap that shows how much of the effort remains to be decided in court.
The case also illustrates the traceability of cryptocurrencies. Because public blockchains record every transfer, investigators can follow funds from victims' wallets through intermediate addresses to holdings that are later identified as belonging to a group. That trail is what allows governments to describe, and then seek to seize, bitcoin on this scale.
6. Isle of Man Raids and the Gaming Licenses
Police raided two Isle of Man homes that apparently belong to Li last October, working jointly with the FBI. The island's connection to the case rests on gaming licenses: Prince Group obtained licenses there that were allegedly used to launder the group's criminal proceeds.
Gaming licenses can serve as a source of legitimacy for a business, offering regulated cover and bank access. Investigators allege that the licenses were used for the opposite purpose, helping to turn proceeds of fraud into money that appeared to come from a lawful activity.
The raids and the penthouse freeze show a pattern in the British approach. Officials have acted on several fronts at once, using sanctions, property freezes and criminal searches to reach people and assets across different jurisdictions.
7. UK Crackdown on Southeast Asian Scam Centers
The UK has widened its campaign against scam centers in Southeast Asia beyond Prince Group. It sanctioned the crypto marketplace Xinbi as part of the crackdown, targeting a marketplace tied to the region's scam industry.
The combined measures aim to cut off the financial channels that keep the compounds running. Freezing property deprives alleged leaders of assets, sanctions limit their access to the financial system and action against marketplaces closes routes for converting crypto to cash.
Cooperation among governments is central to the effort. The British, American and other authorities involved are sharing intelligence and coordinating actions, which explains why sanctions and freezes tend to land within months of one another.
The sequence in this case supports that reading. The United States designated Li and 145 other Prince Group targets in October 2025, the Isle of Man raids took place in the same month with FBI participation, the UK sanctioned Li in March and the London freezing orders followed. Each step builds on the one before, and each narrows the places where the alleged proceeds can be held.
For victims, the practical question is whether frozen assets can eventually be used to compensate them. Nothing in the current actions says how any recovered funds would be handled, and that decision would come only after the courts rule on the claims.
8. What Happens Next in the Case?
The next step comes on Monday, October 12, when authorities will apply to a court to continue seizing Li's watches and jewelry, valued at £10.6 million, together with £92,570 in cash. The hearing will decide whether those items remain in the hands of the authorities.
The fate of the penthouse and the other frozen properties will depend on further legal steps. A freezing order is typically a first stage that preserves assets while investigators build a case, and a later stage can involve forfeiture if a court agrees that the property represents the proceeds of crime.
The outcome of the U.S. forfeiture claim for roughly $14 billion in bitcoin is the other major event to watch. Prince Group continues to deny wrongdoing, so contested proceedings in both countries are likely to be closely followed.
For the wider crypto industry, the case is a reminder that large holdings of digital assets are visible on public ledgers and can draw the attention of enforcement agencies. It also shows that authorities now treat property, cash, luxury goods and cryptocurrency as parts of a single financial picture, pursuing all of them in parallel rather than in isolation.