Two homes raided by police as part of a joint US-Isle of Man crackdown on transnational organised crime are owned by a Cambodian citizen sanctioned by Washington, Isle of Man Today can reveal.
The raids were carried out on the morning of October 14 at premises in Hillberry Green, Douglas, and Majestic View in Onchan.
It was an operation launched by the FBI with the support of the Isle of Man Constabulary’s Pro-active International Money Laundering Investigation Team (PIMLET).
The two properties - Llamedos at Hillberry Green and No.38 Majestic View - were raided on the same day that their owner was added, along with 17 others, to the list of sanctioned individuals by the US Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).
Chinese national Thet Li is accused of being involved in bulk cash smuggling and managing dirty money for a Cambodian conglomerate labelled by OFAC as a ‘transnational criminal organisation’.
Land Registry records show that Llamedos - which spells ‘Sod ‘em all’ - backwards - was purchased by Li, 38, of Chamkar Mon district, Phnom Penh, Cambodia, for £3.75m in February 2024.
The five-bedroom, international architect-designed mansion features an indoor pool and cinema room.
Li also owns no.38 Majestic View which he bought for £1.15m in November 2022. It has uninterrupted views over Douglas Bay and has an imposing big cat sculpture prowling on the garden terrace.
No one was arrested during the raids.
There is no indication that Thet Li ever visited the Isle of Man.
Neighbours on Majestic View said no.38, had been empty for at least a year. They said the last occupants were a Chinese couple who had two sports cars and used to walk a robot dog.
It is understood that the two properties could be subject to future restraint proceedings in line with actions taken in other jurisdictions.
OFAC, in co-ordination with the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office, announced last month that it was taking the largest ever action targeting cybercriminal networks in South East Asia.
Sweeping sanctions have been imposed by the UK and US on 146 targets with the Cambodia-based Prince Group, which is alleged to operate at least 10 scam compounds responsible for industrial scale cyberfraud operations targeting victims around the world.
The group is accused of profiting from a litany of transnational crimes including sextortion, money laundering various frauds and rackets, corruption, illegal online gambling, human trafficking, torture and extortion of enslaved workers.
Li has been sanctioned for his alleged links to the Prince Group.
The US Department of the Treasury accuses him of being a ‘close associate’ of Prince Group chairman Chen Zhi ‘who serves as a de facto illicit finance CFO for Prince Group’.
‘Thet Li is involved in bulk cash smuggling and managing dirty money in Prince Holding Group’s financial flows,’ it claimed.
On the same day as the raids in the Isle of Man, an indictment was unsealed in the Brooklyn federal court charging Chen Zhi with wire fraud conspiracy and money laundering conspiracy for directing Prince Group’s operation of forced-labour scam compounds across Cambodia.
It said that individuals held against their will in the compounds engaged in cryptocurrency investment fraud schemes, known as ‘pig butchering’ scams, that stole billions of dollars from victims in the United States and around the world. The defendant is still at large.
At a liquidation hearing in June, Chen Zhi was named as the beneficial owner of island-based e-gaming firm Ableton Prestige Global Limited.
Police executed a search warrant at the offices of Ableton, Aperia IoM and Amiga Entertainment on Ridgeway Street, Douglas, in March this year in relation to what the Constabulary described as a ‘large-scale international money laundering investigation’. Inquiries are ongoing.
Another individual added to the sanctions list is Chen Xiuling, aka Karen Cheng, who is reported to have been a director of Amiga Entertainment, as well as overseeing Prince Holding Group’s companies based in Mauritius, Taiwan and Singapore.
The US Department of Justice has seized about $15bn worth of Bitcoin said to be the proceeds of fraud and money laundering, describing this as the largest forfeiture action in its history.
Meanwhile, the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office has frozen assets linked to Chen Zhi including a £12m mansion in North London, £100m office building in the City of London and 17 luxury flats across South London.
The Prince Group denies involvement in human trafficking. online scamming or money laundering and insists it has never owned or operated scam centres.
