SINGAPORE, Dec 20 — A Singaporean man sanctioned by the United States over links to the suspected mastermind of one of Asia’s largest scam networks has been arrested in the city-state, police said yesterday.
Nigel Tang Wan Bao Nabil was detained on his return to Singapore on December 11 for his “suspected involvement in money laundering offences linked to Chen Zhi and the companies associated with him,” police said in a statement to AFP.
“Police investigations are ongoing.”
Tang, 32, was the captain of a superyacht owned by Chen, the Singapore-based Business Times reported.
Chen is a British-Cambodian tycoon accused of running forced labour camps in Cambodia used as multi-billion-dollar scam centres. He has been indicted in the United States.
Washington has said that Chen’s multinational conglomerate, Prince Holding Group, served as a front for “one of Asia’s largest transnational criminal organisations”.
Prince Group has denied the allegations.
Tang was one of three Singaporeans sanctioned in October by the US Treasury Department for their ties to Chen.
In late October, Singapore police said they had seized more than US$115 million (RM468 million) in assets tied to Chen following raids on multiple locations in the city-state.
Chen allegedly directed operations of forced labour compounds across Cambodia, where hundreds of trafficked workers were held in prison-like facilities surrounded by high walls and barbed wire, according to US prosecutors.
Under threat of violence, they were forced to execute so-called “pig butchering” scams — cryptocurrency investment schemes that build trust with victims over time before stealing their funds, according to the US Department of Justice.
Since around 2015, Prince Group has operated across more than 30 countries under the guise of legitimate real estate, financial services and consumer businesses, the prosecutors said.
Proceeds were laundered in part through the Prince Group’s own gambling and cryptocurrency mining operations. — AFP
