Finance chief of £46billion Chinese ‘romance scam’ syndicate has his £9million London penthouse and £10m of watches and jewellery frozen by UK authorities

DAILYMAIL.COM • 2h ago

By RORY TINGLE, HOME AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT 10:31 12 Oct 2026, updated 10:44 12 Oct 2026

A ‘key lieutenant’ in a £46billion Chinese scam syndicate has had his London penthouse and £10million of watches and jewellery frozen by the UK authorities.

Thet Li, 39, paid £8.9million in 2022 for the ‘stunning’ four-bedroom, 3,250-square-foot property overlooking Buckingham Palace.

He was sanctioned by the UK and US in March and May for his alleged role in the Prince Group, which is accused of carrying out ‘pig butchering’ romance scams and investment frauds from a network of sites across the Far East.

The UK accuses Li of being a ‘key lieutenant’ to the network’s leader and of having ‘managed the Prince Group’s international financial network’.

British officials have now placed a freezing order on his apartment’s Land Registry record to prevent it from being sold or transferred.

They will also apply to a court today to continue the seizure of the alleged crime lord’s luxury watches and jewellery, valued at £10.6million, alongside £92,570 in cash.

Photos of Li’s 13th-floor penthouse apartment show an open-plan kitchen leading onto a plush living room and roof terrace with views over St James’s Park and the Houses of Parliament.

The property was described by estate agents as ‘stunning’ and as combining ‘renaissance Italian influences with understated British elegance’.

Prince Group allegedly used more than 100,000 trafficked workers in its scam operations, according to the United Nations.

The term ‘pig-butchering’ refers to a scam in which victims are tricked into believing they are in a romantic or social relationship before being asked to send money or invest in a fraudulent scheme.

Scammers refer to their victims as ‘pigs’ who they ‘fatten’ before ‘butchering’. They are typically wealthy westerners.

Li, who was born in Beijing, allegedly bought citizenships in Cyprus, Cambodia, Saint Lucia and Saint Kitts and Nevis.

The US Treasury accuses him of being the ‘de facto illicit’ chief financial officer for Prince Group and claims he was responsible for ‘bulk cash smuggling and managing dirty money’.

He is said to have operated scam centres from casinos and compounds before spending the proceeds on private jets, luxury goods and a Picasso painting.

Li allegedly laundered some of the money through the Isle of Man, where two homes apparently owned by him – a £3.75million mansion and a £1.15million coastal property – were raided by police in October last year.

He is the former owner of an artificial intelligence company based in Southampton, which has now been dissolved.

Prince Group’s chairman, Chen Zhi, 38, has had freezing orders placed on a £100million City of London office and a £12million mansion in St John’s Wood, north London.

He was extradited to China from Cambodia last year.

His alleged second-in-command, Wu An Ming, 44, paid £3.5million for the Udney Park playing fields in Teddington, south-west London. They were frozen earlier this year, alongside a £53million townhouse allegedly owned by Wu’s wife.

Wu is believed to have been arrested in Japan in June.

The Prince Group is allegedly linked to £8 Park, a scam compound thought to be the largest in Cambodia.

Cambodia’s government has launched its own crackdown on the scam economy, with local authorities estimating that 2,500 sites have been raided, leading to the closure of hundreds of scam centres and the release of tens of thousands of foreign nationals.

Announcing sanctions against Prince Group and Mr Zhi in March, Foreign Office minister Stephen Doughty said: ‘Our sanctions today send a clear message: We will not allow British people to become victims of these dreadful scams or tolerate the awful human rights abuses perpetrated in these scam centres.

‘We must keep up the pressure on dirty money and those who benefit from it. At the Illicit Finance Summit in June, the UK will drive international action to tackle the ways in which ill-gotten profits are laundered and moved around the world.’

Last year, Prince Group said it ‘categorically rejects the notion that it or its chairman, Chen Zhi, has engaged in any unlawful activity’.

‘The recent allegations are baseless and appear aimed at justifying the unlawful seizure of assets worth billions of dollars. Nonetheless, these unfounded allegations, amplified by media reports repeating these and other unverified claims, have caused undue harm to thousands of innocent employees, partners, and communities who the Group serves,’ it said in a statement.

‘The Group remains committed to integrity, responsible investment, and sustainable economic growth across the region,’ it said, adding: ‘We are confident that when the facts come out, the Prince Group and its chairman will be fully exonerated.’

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