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The U.K. today announced a new round of sanctions targeting individuals and entities linked to Cambodia’s Prince Group, which is widely alleged to have operated a network of scam centers built on forced labor and human trafficking.
“A number of London properties will be frozen as a result of today’s sanctions,” said the announcement by the U.K.’s Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), which followed up on a sanctions package it coordinated with the U.S. in October 2025.
“This is in addition to the substantial U.K. assets already frozen by previous action against the network, including a £100 million [$133 million] office block in the City of London, two multi-million-pound mansions, and a helicopter.”
One of the key individuals listed in the new round of sanctions was Hu Xiaowei, who is also known as Hu Shi, Chen Xiao’er, and Wu An Ming, and holds Chinese, Cambodian, Cypriot, and St. Kitts and Nevis citizenship.
OCCRP has previously reported on Hu’s extensive portfolio of U.K. property and global business interests, including a £30 million ($40 million) mansion and a sports field, as well as his multiple identities and deeper links to Prince Group chairman Chen Zhi, who in January was arrested in Cambodia and extradited to China.
Chen Zhi, chairman of Prince Group, together with Lei Bo, both U.K. and U.S.-sanctioned individuals, at an inauguration ceremony in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, in 2023.
Describing Hu as a “long-term associate of Chen Zhi who has been unmasked as involved in the Prince Group’s financial network under three different aliases,” the FCDO said there were “reasonable grounds” to suspect that he has provided financial services, or made available funds to people and entities involved in human rights abuses.”
Hu has already technically been sanctioned by the U.S. Department of the Treasury in October, but only by one of his aliases, Chen Xiao’er.
Also included in the new U.K. sanctions package is Wang Xiaoyan, the wife of Zhu Zhongbiao also known as Jack Zhu, the chairman of Jinbei Group, a casino operator in Prince Group’s umbrella of companies that U.S. Treasury alleged operated some of its “most notorious” compounds.
OCCRP has reported on Wang Xiaoyan, who holds Cypriot citizenship, and her U.K. properties, which include luxury apartments in London’s Canary Wharf and Battersea Power Station, along with Zhu Zhongbiao’s sizable portfolio of Dubai luxury real estate.
Screenshot/zoopla.co.uk
A £8.5 million ($11.3 million) home owned by Wang Xiaoyan in Hampstead Heath, northwest London, was among the properties seized by the U.K.
Among the other sanctioned Prince Group-linked entities is Cambodian and Chinese national Li Thet, also known by his birth name of Li Tian, who the FCDO described as a “key lieutenant of Chen Zhi, who has managed Prince Group’s international financial network, including in Taiwan.” Li was sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury in October 2025 along with Singapore companies under his direct control.
Li, who also holds Vanuatu citizenship, is the owner of two homes on the Isle of Man that were raided by police earlier this year. Companies on the island owned by Prince Group chairman Chen Zhi are currently the subject of what police called a “large-scale international money laundering investigation.”
A £9 million ($12 million) penthouse owned by Li in Victoria, London, confirmed through property records seen by OCCRP, was also seized as part of the sanctions. The penthouse has iconic views over London’s Saint James’s Park and Buckingham Palace.
Li Thet’s penthouse apartment in Victoria, London.
Hu Xiaowei, Wang Xiaoyan, and Li Thet did not immediately reply to emailed OCCRP requests for comment. In a previous statement to OCCRP, Hu Xiaowei’s assistant said that he had been “unjustly sanctioned” by the US Treasury and had appealed.
