UK Freezes $12M Palace Pad Linked to Prince Group's "De Facto Illicit Finance CFO" 🏰

UK authorities have frozen a London penthouse overlooking Buckingham Palace belonging to Thet Li, the alleged finance chief of Prince Group, The Times reported Sunday. Li, 39, paid £8.9 million in 2022 for the 13th-floor apartment near St James's Park, and authorities placed a freezing order on its Land Registry record following a Foreign Office investigation. The U.S. Treasury sanctioned Li in October 2025 among 146 Prince Group targets, describing him as a "de facto illicit finance CFO" involved in "bulk cash smuggling and managing dirty money."

The UK sanctioned Li in March under its global human rights regime, citing his links to Chen Zhi and Prince Group, whose Cambodian scam centers authorities say subject workers to forced labor and cruel treatment. UK authorities also accuse Li of being a "key lieutenant" to the group's leader who "managed the Prince Group's international financial network." The UK describes Prince Group as a front for "industrial scale" online fraud, including romance and investment scams known as pig butchering, and cited United Nations estimates that more than 100,000 trafficked workers are forced to work in its operations.

Freezing orders also cover a £12 million mansion in St John's Wood and a £100 million office building in the City of London tied to Prince Group chairman Chen Zhi, who was arrested in Cambodia and extradited to China. Assets linked to Chen's alleged second in command, Wu An Ming, including a £30 million Holland Park mansion and a £53 million Belgravia townhouse registered to a woman alleged to be his wife, have also been frozen. Wu was reportedly arrested in Japan in June.

Police raided two Isle of Man homes apparently owned by Li last October in a joint operation with the FBI. Prince Group obtained gaming licenses on the island that were allegedly used to launder the proceeds of its crimes. The U.S. has sought forfeiture of about $14 billion in $BTC tied to the group, and a Washington-based Scam Center Strike Force has reported $580 million in crypto seizures and freezes. The UK has also sanctioned crypto marketplace Xinbi as part of a crackdown on Southeast Asian scam centers, and Interpol has called the scam compound network a global threat. Prince Group said last year that it "categorically rejects the notion that it or its chairman, Chen Zhi, has engaged in any unlawful" conduct.