In 2021, while China-born businessman Chen Zhi was building a multibillion-dollar empire now enmeshed in multiple criminal allegations, staff at his family office in Singapore ran into seemingly minor technical glitches.
Advertisement
At first, some of them struggled to connect to the office copier. Days later, the door badges stopped working. After they regained access, staffers quickly realised they had a much bigger problem: millions of dollars had been siphoned from Chen’s bank accounts.
While the founder and chairman of Cambodian conglomerate Prince Holding Group is now accused of running a global business empire built on enslavement, sextortion and “pig-butchering” scams, for years Chen made himself out to be a victim in Singapore.
Several lawsuits his family office filed between 2021 and 2022 against former executive David Wong said he “misappropriated” S$5.84 million (US$4.5 million) of Chen’s money from an Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation account. Wong had been sole director of Chen’s family firm before his dismissal in July 2021, according to court filings.
More than 80 case documents filed in relation to the legal battle provide an unparalleled picture of the extensive banking network Chen built in Singapore and how he gained tax breaks from the country’s regulators. They also reveal the sometimes mundane bureaucracy involved in running his family office. Together, they shed light on how an individual accused by US authorities of being a criminal “mastermind” operated openly in Singapore for years.
Advertisement
In one email chain, staff discussed reports sent to the Monetary Authority of Singapore to maintain government tax breaks before switching gears to provide an update on plans to airlift 388kg of whisky from the Geneva Freeport to a bonded warehouse in Singapore.