WASHINGTON — The U.S. Treasury on Thursday sanctioned four individuals and 41 entities that support the business network of the Prince Group, a transnational criminal organization the United States says has stolen billions of dollars from Americans through online scams. It separately designated a Malaysian man accused of running a Madagascar-based scam ring that defrauded Americans.
The Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control designated 45 targets under the executive order covering transnational criminal organizations and one more under the order covering malicious cyber-enabled activities. The action builds on designations from October 14, 2025 and June 23, 2026 that targeted Prince Group leadership, affiliated companies and financial facilitators.
The newly designated people and companies helped sustain the group's illicit global operations after those earlier designations, Treasury said, by managing offshore corporate structures, concealing beneficial ownership, facilitating commercial activities and providing administrative and financial services to senior executives. Some also helped evade the previous sanctions, including by transferring property and holding companies for previously designated leaders.
At the center of the action is Qiu Yong, described by Treasury as a key Prince Group member who controls multiple companies in the British Virgin Islands and Hong Kong on the group's behalf and once worked for a company controlled by its leader, Chen Zhi. Qiu holds passports from Cambodia, St. Lucia and Türkiye, and is the beneficial owner of BVI-based companies that control a network of Hong Kong firms involved in money lending, wine distribution and other businesses. Chen Zhi was designated in October 2025.
Treasury also targeted two people holding property for, or co-directing companies with, Prince Group executive Chen Bo, who was designated on June 23, 2026: his wife, Cambodian national He Yujing, and Cambodian associate Visal Pang. Chen Bo has transferred ownership of his Tokyo mansion to He Yujing since the October 2025 action, Treasury said, while Pang controls eleven Cambodian companies — spanning construction, logistics, entertainment and hotels — several of which he co-directs with Chen Bo. Pang was also designated by the United Kingdom on March 26, 2026. Chen Bo remains in control of eleven more Cambodian companies, including Prince International Airlines and CB General Insurance.
In a separate designation, Treasury sanctioned Malaysian national Chui Kok Wa, who it said led an extensive network of scammers based in Madagascar that targeted Americans, defrauding them of more than $400,000 in digital assets. The scammers exploited cryptocurrencies and other digital systems, winning the sympathy of vulnerable victims to misappropriate their funds, Treasury said.
The schemes at the heart of the case include digital asset investment scams, romance scams and other online fraud, carried out in many cases from large-scale scam compounds in Southeast Asia where trafficked and coerced workers are forced to perpetrate fraud against victims around the world. The proceeds are laundered through shell companies, offshore holding companies and digital asset transactions. "Cyber scam syndicates continue to steal billions of dollars from American victims while relying on sophisticated international business networks to launder their illicit proceeds," Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said. The action was coordinated with the FBI, the Justice Department's Scam Center Strike Force and the U.S. Attorney's office for the District of Alaska, with assistance from the British Virgin Islands Financial Investigation Agency and the United Kingdom.
The group's founder, Chen Zhi, was extradited from Cambodia to China in January, and Cambodian authorities have frozen nearly $1 billion in casinos, buildings and other real estate linked to the network. The sanctions block all property of the designated people and companies that is in the United States or in the possession or control of U.S. persons, and the restrictions extend to any entity they own at least 50 percent of.
