US indictment names mystery "enforcer" accused of protecting Prince Group’s scam empire
A person identified as “Co-Conspirator-2” in a U.S. grand jury indictment allegedly served as an “enforcer” for the Prince Group, helping the sprawling Cambodian conglomerate evade police crackdowns amid allegations that it operated large-scale cyber scam networks.
The indictment did not disclose the identity of Co-Conspirator-2, but it contained enough personal information for reporters to confirm that the person is Chen Sokly, who was born in China and has lived in the U.S. and Singapore. This was reported by OCCRP
The indictment targets Prince Group Chairman Chen Zhi, who is charged with alleged wire fraud and money laundering conspiracy. Chen Zhi was extradited from Cambodia to China where he also faces charges. The U.S. court documents obtained by OCCRP do not show any plea, and a spokesperson for the District Court for the Eastern District of New York declined to provide an update on the status of the case.
A spokesperson for the Prince Group rejected the U.S. Justice Department’s allegations, telling OCCRP they would “challenge these accusations [and] expose the factual and chronological impossibilities on which they rest.”
In the indictment, U.S. prosecutors cited seven anonymized co-conspirators.
“Co-Conspirator-2 served as a Prince Group enforcer and used corrupt and violent means to maintain Prince Group’s dominance among scam operators,” the indictment alleges.
OCCRP and the Straits Times have confirmed that Co-Conspirator-2 was born in Shanghai in 1986 as Chen Xing. He obtained citizenship in Cambodia in 2017 under the name Chen Sokly, and in Cyprus the following year using his birth name.
Chen Sokly has not been charged in the U.S indictment.
Alongside his alleged work with the Prince Group, Chen Sokly built up his own holdings in the U.S. and Singapore, corporate and land registry documents show. Several countries have sanctioned alleged Prince Group associates, but Chen Sokly has not been targeted.
Source Documents
The Prince Group presented itself as a Cambodian success story, emerging in the mid-2010s to oversee a real estate development, finance, and consumer services empire across more than 30 countries.
But in October 2025, the U.S. Treasury Department designated the conglomerate a “transnational criminal organization,” alleging it operated “industrial-scale” cyber-scam compounds staffed partly by human trafficking victims. The U.S. and U.K. issued joint sanctions against more than 100 associated individuals and entities.
Prosecutors allege that, under the direction of Chen Zhi, the Prince Group trafficked thousands of migrant workers to at least 10 fortified scam compounds across Cambodia. The workers were lured with promises of legitimate jobs, then held against their will.
“Chen and Prince are not now, nor have ever been involved in the scam, scam compound, money laundering, or other criminal activity alleged by the U.S. Government,” said the conglomerate’s spokesperson in response to questions about allegations in the indictment as well as U.S. sanctions.
In the indictment filed in October 2025, prosecutors alleged that Co-Conspirator-2 was head of “risk control” for the Prince Group. They alleged that Co-Conspirator-2 monitored police investigations, and engaged in corrupt bargaining with foreign law enforcement officials to protect the group’s scam compounds, cryptocurrency investment fraud, and money laundering schemes.
The indictment alleged that he directed a Chinese law enforcement official to have local Cambodian police extort businesses on behalf of Prince Group. He also allegedly purchased a yacht worth more than $3 million for a senior government official from an unnamed country. He also allegedly offered to “take care of” the son of a Chinese Ministry of Public Security official after the official stated he could get Prince Group associates "off the hook."
The indictment contained details about Co-Conspirator-2 that allowed reporters to confirm it refers to Chen Sokly.
For example, it stated that between 2017 and 2022 Co-Conspirator-2 served as chairman of Awesome Global Investment Group, an alleged Prince Group subsidiary in Cambodia that was “engaged in the entertainment, hospitality and real estate development businesses,” according to the indictment. Chen Sokly held the same position at the company during that timeframe, Cambodian corporate records show.
The U.S. has sanctioned Awesome Global Investment Group, because of its links to Chen Zhi who previously chaired the board of directors. One other Awesome Global Investment Group director has been sanctioned, along with executives at companies that are part of the group.
A U.S. Treasury Department spokesperson declined to comment on why Chen Sokly has not been sanctioned along with other alleged senior Prince Group executives.
Chen Sokly did not respond to requests for comment. A lawyer who is listed in California corporate records as Chen Sokly’s company agent said his firm no longer works with him. The lawyer did not respond to a request to pass along questions to Chen Sokly.
The Prince Group spokesperson said the conglomerate and its chairman are “targets of a coordinated international asset grab dressed up as law enforcement,” noting that U.S. prosecutors have frozen bitcoin worth about $15 billion.
“The government’s allegations are simply air cover to manufacture a legal basis for retaining Bitcoin stolen from Chen Zhi,” said the spokesperson.
Setting up in Singapore
The U.S. indictment described Co-Conspirator-2 as a citizen of Cambodia and Cyprus who resided in the U.S. and Singapore — a profile that matches Chen Sokly.
Chen Sokly purchased a luxury apartment in Singapore in mid-2017, then began incorporating or taking directorships in multiple companies, corporate records show. He also became a 50-percent shareholder of Sunseeker M Singapore Pte Ltd. (his wife owned the rest of the shares.) That company was a regional dealer for Sunseeker International Limited, a U.K.-based superyacht company.
A video of a Sunseeker party in 2018 features a swarm of Lamborghinis parading across Singapore, arriving at a marina where Chen Sokly socialized with guests.
A spokesperson for Sunseeker International said Chen Sokly worked as a “sub dealer for Sunseeker Asia” under the name Martin Chen until the firm stopped trading in 2019. The spokesperson said Sunseeker M Singapore took over as its official dealer in the region from February 2021 to January 2022.
Over the course of 2018 and 2019, Chen Sokly was either a director or a shareholder in several entities in Cambodia, Singapore and Mauritius. These included Oceanic Opportunity Fund PCC. Chen Sokly was a shareholder of that fund, which provided the now-sanctioned Prince Bank with over $50 million in loans, documents show. Oceanic Opportunity Fund was also a shareholder of Skyline Investment Management Pte Ltd, a Singapore investment vehicle under Chen Zhi’s control when the U.S. sanctioned it in October 2025.
These entities involved close partnerships — either joint directorships or shared ownership — with three individuals linked to Huione Group, a crypto and payments services firm. The U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned Huione Group alongside the Prince Group for allegedly laundering money for actors ranging from scam operators to North Korean hackers.
Following an investigation by the U.S. Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, the Justice Department alleged that Huione Group laundered $4 billion in illicit funds between 2021 and 2025, including Prince Group proceeds. In April, Huione’s then-chairman Li Xiong was extradited from Cambodia to China, where state media described him as a “core backbone member of Prince Group’s criminal enterprise.”
There is no evidence that Chen Sokly had any direct role in the Huione Group. The charges and allegations against Huione Group, and Li Xiong’s role in the Prince Group remain unproven. Huione Group did not respond to a request for comment.
Moving to Los Angeles
In 2020, an Asian yachting business magazine featured Chen Sokly side-by-side with some of Asia’s wealthiest people. He was interviewed as Martin Chen, the name he has used in both Singapore and the U.S.
The year before that article, Chen Sokly had acquired his first of two luxury homes in the Los Angeles metropolitan area.
One of the homes was sold to him by Fang Zhizhen, who has been wanted in China since 2016 for allegedly engaging in computer hacking. The U.S. sanctioned Fang Zhizhen in June, alleging that he “has been involved with the Prince Group’s online payment gateways for scams and laundered money for the [conglomerate’s] scam center proceeds.”
Fang Zhizhen did not respond to a request for comment.
California business records show that in 2020 Chen Sokly began setting up several companies in the state, mostly based at an address in City of Industry, a municipality in eastern Los Angeles.
In August 2020, Chen Sokly’s wife Li Mengmeng bought a second Los Angeles home, a newly-built five bedroom house with a swimming pool in a gated community, property records show.
In 2021, Chen Sokly imported his superyacht, Susan, to the U.S. after setting up a company in the vessel’s name, trade and corporate documents show.
Li Mengmeng did not respond to requests for comment.
Property records show that two months after the U.S. imposed sweeping sanctions on the Prince Group in October 2025, Li Mengmeng transferred the second home’s ownership to a trust held under her name. There is no evidence that the transfer was related to the sanctions.
The U.S. slapped a second round of sanctions on the Prince Group on June 23, 2026. Alleged Prince Group associates have also been targeted in jurisdictions including Hong Kong, the U.K., Taiwan, Thailand, and Singapore.
Days after those sanctions and the criminal indictment against Chen Zhi, prosecutors filed a civil forfeiture complaint in order to freeze assets deemed to be proceeds of alleged crimes by the Prince Group, including billions of dollars worth of bitcoin. That document quotes a conversation in which Co-Conspirator 2 allegedly “boasted that whenever there were law enforcement crackdowns at the scam compounds, nothing happened to ‘us.’”
With the Prince Group seemingly above the law in Cambodia, money allegedly kept flowing from “pig butchering” scams. Known as “sha zhu pan” in Chinese, the scams target victims who are contacted via messaging apps or social media. Scammers earn their trust and then lure them into fake investments, coaxing as much money as possible out of them.
“Co-Conspirator-2 boasted that, in 2018, Prince Group was earning over $30 million a day from fraudulent sha zhu pan schemes and related illicit Activities,” the indictment alleged.
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