Inside Chen Zhi's Scam Hell: Bribes, Torture, and a $30 Million-a-Day Crime Empire

Recently, Chen Ji, the leader of the Prince Group, was arrested. According to sanctions released by the UK, the United States, and other countries, Chen Ji built at least 10 telecom scam compounds in Cambodia and spent tens of billions of US dollars bribing officials in multiple countries through every imaginable means, from cash and luxury watches to extravagant yachts. Among those who accepted the bribes were even high-ranking Chinese officials. The horrors do not end there. A victim who managed to escape from one of the scam compounds in Cambodia exposed the shocking reality inside, leaving people stunned and exclaiming, they have lost all humanity. Join us as we uncover the truth in today's program. A vast fortune and dirty money-making tactics. Chen Ji has ties to the Sun Yeon Triad crime syndicate in Macau, prompting US authorities to suspect that China has used the Belt and Road Initiative as a cover for criminal activities such as fraud, drug trafficking, and human trafficking. The network's bases have extended to Taiwan, Palau, and other regions. Beyond functioning as an overseas extension of the Chinese Communist Party, the group has also caused serious disruptions to international financial order. To date, the Taipei prosecutor's office has carried out seven rounds of raids, tracing illicit money flows and seizing luxury villas and supercars worth 4.5 billion New Taiwan dollars, which are expected to be auctioned off soon and turned over to the state. According to US indictments, over a 10-year period. Chen Ji amassed enormous wealth in Southeast Asia by operating scam compounds while using tens of billions of US dollars to bribe officials in multiple countries through cash, yachts, and luxury watches. Officials from China's Ministry of Public Security and Ministry of State Security were also implicated, raising public concern that if Chen Ji were extradited to China, his life could be at risk, and that the entire case might be cut off at the source. Although the US Department of Justice indicted Chen Ji last year, it is now increasingly unlikely that he will ever stand trial in a US court. His extradition to China is widely believed to be intended to protect both Chen Ji himself and the Chinese officials involved in accepting bribes. Recently, Cambodia extradited Chen Ji along with two key associates, Xu Zhiliang and Xiaojie Hui, to China for interrogation. According to a 68-page indictment issued by federal prosecutors in New York, the Prince Group was a transnational fraud empire secretly controlled by Chen Ji. A total of 146 companies and individuals, including Chen Ji himself, were sanctioned, making it one of the largest US financial sanctions operations in recent years. Investigation details released by the US Department of Justice reveal that Chen Ji did not build a legitimate business, but rather a criminal machine that fused technology, violence, and psychological manipulation. At its peak, the group generated as much as USD 30 million per day in illegal income. After Chen Ji's arrest, his assets worldwide were successively frozen. US authorities have so far seized cryptocurrency worth USD 15 billion. In addition, US investigators obtained management documents from the scam compounds, as well as internal communications between telecom fraud parks. Among them was an account ledger explicitly labeled Pig Butchering Scam Profits, detailing the fraud methods used at the Jinhong compound. Each floor was assigned a different specialization, such as scams targeting Russians, scams targeting Vietnamese victims, and high-end chatting aimed at Europe and North America, primarily investment fraud, as well as other refined chatting and task farming scams directed at Vietnam, China, and Taiwan. The records were extraordinarily detailed, including bilingual Chinese-English comparison tables, screenshots, and even performance evaluation systems. Victims, lured to Cambodia with promises of high-paying jobs, were denied food if they failed to meet daily scam quotas, beaten, and detained. Victims came from numerous countries, and the scale and sophistication of the operation are staggering. These compounds were secured by three layers of absolute control. Physical isolation through high walls and electrified fences. Armed suppression by security forces patrolling around the clock and ready-to-use violence. And digital surveillance via software that tracked every movement in real time. Any attempt to seek help was immediately crushed, turning these places into inescapable urban prisons. The Prince Group's Ties to Macau Triad Bosses According to Secret China, U.S., authorities discovered that the Prince Group maintained close ties with an overseas Chinese association with strong pro-China characteristics in Palau. The group was also found to be colluding with a Macau Triad kingpin, Wan Kwok Khoi, better known by his nickname, Broken Tooth Khoi. Wan Kwok Khoi was once a notorious underworld boss in Hong Kong and Macau. In 1999, he was sentenced to 13 years and 10 months in prison for loan sharking, money laundering, and illegal possession of weapons, and was not released until 2012. After his release, Wan Kwok Khoi took leadership of the local Hung Mun organization and issued 10 billion units of the Hung Mun cryptocurrency. This move led the United States to suspect that he had ties to the Chinese Communist Party's United Front Work Department. In reality, international financial investigators, including the U.S. Treasury Department, believe the cryptocurrency was a money laundering tool. Illicit funds from illegal activities such as gambling and protection rackets were funneled into the cryptosystem and then withdrawn as supposedly legitimate business profits. During a launch event in Cambodia, Wan claimed that hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars had been raised within minutes, an almost inconceivable figure for a newly launched project. As a result, as early as 2020, the United States sanctioned Wan Kwok Khoi under the Magnitsky Act. U.S. authorities suspected that under the cover of the Belt and Road Initiative, he was concealing a transnational criminal network in Southeast Asia, including illegal casinos in Myanmar, drug trafficking linked to the 14K Triad, and the establishment of additional Hung Mun bases in Palau. In 2018, when Wan attempted to obtain a casino license in Palau, he used this organization as a channel to reach senior Palauan leaders. Because Chen Ji routed money laundering activities through Taiwan to Palau, and given that he is only 38 years old, observers have speculated that Chen Ji belongs to the so-called Fujian faction within the Chinese Communist Party's political establishment. The recent dismantling of the Prince Group by the UK, the United States, and other countries has now drawn close attention from governments around the world. Bribing Senior Officials of China's Ministry of Public Security According to U.S. documents, in May 23, a senior official from China's Ministry of Public Security of the People's Republic of China contacted one of Chen Ji's close associates, claiming he could help Prince Group personnel escape trouble, on the condition that Chen Ji would take care of the official's son in exchange for protection. The two sides quickly reached an agreement, with Chen Ji using bribes to buy a brief period of calm. The identity of the official was not disclosed in the U.S. indictment. In addition, in July of the same year, another of Chen Ji's operatives instructed a Chinese law enforcement officer to have local police extort businesses on behalf of the Prince Group. According to intercepted conversations obtained by U.S. authorities, the operative said, let the police do the robbing first, then we'll step in under my name and my company's name to provide protection. Rob first, protect later. In the same exchange, the operative also boasted, whenever the scam compounds come under intense investigation, we always remain safe and untouched. Through financial dealings with officials from China's Ministry of Public Security, Chen Ji established direct communication channels and frequently bragged that he could implying access to the very top. He also maintained contacts with the Ministry of State Security of the People's Republic of China and other agencies, using bribes in exchange for law enforcement intelligence. One can only wonder whether Chen Ji and his accomplices retained any conscience while earning and spending this dirty money. Their own compatriots were brutally reduced to nothing more than sources of profit. The horror of Cambodia's scam hell. Not long ago, a 25-year-old man named Lee Hay, who managed to escape from the Baolong Sea scam compound in Cambodia, revealed the horrific truth in an interview with the Epoch Times. After being taken into the compound, Lee Hay was forced to go through a standardized intake process. First, he was ordered to strip naked for inspection. Guards shone flashlights into his mouth and even checked his anus. He was then forced to record a video, holding his ID card against his chest and reading word for word from a script. I voluntarily came to Southeast Asia to engage in fraud. No one forced or deceived me. In the video, he had to clearly state his ID number, full name, address, and family details. Any unnatural facial expression, he said, would result in a beating. Next came the contract signing. Lee Hay said he didn't even have time to see what was written, before his hand was pushed down and forced to sign. Managers verbally promised that, after two years, you'll be safely sent home, but Lee Hay stressed that it was all a lie. Once the contract expired, they wouldn't release people. Instead, they sold them to another scam compound. More importantly, the so-called rules weren't taught. They were enforced with fists. Lee Hay recalled that in his first few days, simply glancing instinctively at a team leader who pushed open the door resulted in a fist smashing into my face within two seconds. If his face twisted in pain, he was beaten. If he tried to force a smile, he was beaten anyway. One attacker even said, beating you makes me feel happy. The list of rules inside the compound was overwhelming. No looking around, no looking at office doors, no approaching fences, no more than 10 minutes in the bathroom, no talking to others, sitting perfectly upright, and not even making eye contact with anyone. According to Lee Hay, debt was the second set of shackles after violence. On his very first day, he was saddled with a debt of 200,000 yuan, covering travel expenses and the cost of being purchased through human trafficking networks. Everything, food, water, bathroom use, work equipment, social media accounts, even sleeping space, was added to the debt. The compound paid no wages, only spoke of repayment. To earn a salary, one had to clear all debts, something Lee Hay said was impossible. Violence was institutionalized and occurred daily. Being beaten more than 20 times a day was normal, Lee Hay said, because any team leader or manager could beat you at will. Punishments for failing to meet targets escalated exponentially. No new victims for three days meant five strikes on the buttocks, day four, 10 strikes, day five, 20 strikes, up to a maximum of 160 strikes. These were combined with brutal physical punishments, over 500 squats, two hours of duck walking, 30 minutes of push-ups, one hour of planking. If someone couldn't endure it, they were subjected to electric shocks, whipping, or beatings with batons, sometimes forced to Other punishments included being forced to eat 10 raw lemons, followed by 20 raw chili peppers, or being dragged into a toilet and made to eat feces and drink urine. Lee has said that if someone refused, guards would pry open their mouth and force-feed them using tubes. He witnessed this with his own eyes, and he himself was once forced to comply, saying he even drank urine. Sexual violence was also widespread. Men were subjected to electric shocks to their genitals until they were left bleeding. Women were sometimes forced to stand on chairs while gripping mop handles. If they failed to comply, they were gang-raped. Lee Hay said he personally witnessed someone beaten to death for dozing off at work. The body was buried near the compound, and in some cases, victims were even buried alive. Suicide was also exploited as a tool of control, with team leaders willing to provide the means. Within this system, human beings were treated as commodities. Lee Hay explained that people were usually not beaten to death because they could still be sold. A person was worth about USD 15,000s, with women fetching even higher prices. Public telegram groups openly traded people, turning human trafficking into a marketplace. Around June 2025, through someone known as Little Pig Elder, Lee Hay managed to pass more detailed location information to his family, including the compound's name, dormitory number, and his personal ID code. But when his family contacted the embassy in early July, I was sold the very same day, he said. If you report it to the police or go to the embassy, they'll just sell you out, he warned. On July 9th, after the company discovered that he had sought outside help, they suspended him for three days and three nights, handcuffed under the blazing sun to a structure resembling a clothes-drying rack, deprived of food for two and a half days, before selling him to a neighboring company. The guards at the company were Myanmar nationals, but all management personnel were Chinese. Anyone with even a shred of conscience couldn't be a manager there, Lee Hay said. Realizing how dire the situation was, Lee Hay's parents turned to unofficial channels. He believes his family searched extensively on Douyin and eventually found a so-called rescue team that demanded 250,000 yuan. He said his family had to sell everything they had, even an old breeding sow and a few hens. If you're short even one cent, he said, no one will rescue you. After hearing this account, what do you think about the crimes attributed to Chen Ji? Leave your thoughts in the comments below. Thank you for watching and see you next time.