Whack-a-Mole: How China's War on Cybercrime Pushed Fraud Offshore – and Ignited a U.S. Crackdown
Brief
On October 14, 2025, the U. S. Department of Justice (DOJ) unsealed an indictment against Chen Zhi (陈志), the Chinese-born founder of Cambodia’s Prince Holding Group, a sprawling real estate and casino conglomerate, charging him with running forced-labor compounds – known as “scam centers,” where trafficked workers are forced to carry out online fraud targeting victims worldwide.
1 The case involved a record $15 billion bitcoin seizure, described by the Treasury as the largest action ever taken against cybercriminal networks in Southeast Asia.
The indictment was not an isolated prosecution but part of a rapidly escalating U. S. crackdown on a vast criminal ecosystem. Less than a month later, on November 12, the U. S.