How accused Prince Group founder Chen Zhi built an empire from Cambodia to London

[PHNOM PENH] Three years ago, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen gifted locally crafted luxury wristwatches to other world leaders at the time, including Joe Biden, during a regional summit in Phnom Penh. Each Lotus Tourbillon timepiece was emblazoned with 25 jewels, with the crown-shaped logo of Cambodian conglomerate Prince Holding Group etched into its components. After accepting the watch, Biden transferred it to the US National Archives along with items with a combined value of US$1,790. The gifts, designed and assembled by a watchmaking school started by Prince Group, show how the enterprise and its China-born chairman Chen Zhi entered into the upper echelons of global influence. The 37-year-old worked meticulously to cultivate an image of legitimacy and even philanthropy and built connections with important people and organisations. He accumulated properties ranging from a London office building to luxury apartments in Singapore and Taiwan, and oversaw a business empire that stretched from the beaches of Palau to the financial hub of Hong Kong. That reach is now rapidly unravelling, after US and UK authorities in mid-October accused Chen and his network of running a transnational criminal ring that operated scam centres using forced labour and laundered billions of US dollars
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