UK authorities are going to court on Monday to keep £10.6 million worth of watches and jewelry seized from alleged Prince Group finance chief Thet Li.
They also want to hold £92,570 in cash, which was seized from him.
A Foreign Office probe froze an £8.9 million penthouse overlooking Buckingham Palace
Li’s London penthouse is already frozen. The 39-year-old bought the 13th-floor flat overlooking Buckingham Palace near St James’s Park for £8.9 million in 2022.
A Foreign Office probe has led to its entry at the Land Registry now being subject to a freezing order. While an order like that remains, it bars an owner from selling or renting a property.
Li is a “key lieutenant” to the leader of Prince Group, Chen Zhi, according to UK authorities. Li is said to control the flow of money through the group’s worldwide operations.
Freezing orders reach Chen Zhi’s £100 million City of London office
Chen’s assets in the capital are also frozen. The orders include a St John’s Wood mansion valued at £12 million and a City of London office block worth £100 million.
Wu An Ming, said to be Chen’s second in command, is also hit. Authorities froze his Holland Park mansion, worth £30 million, plus a £53 million Belgravia townhouse in the name of a woman they say is his wife.
Wu was reportedly arrested in Japan back in June.
Li’s links also reach the Isle of Man. Working with the FBI, police there searched two homes that appear to belong to him last October, and gaming licenses Prince Group held on the island were allegedly used to launder its proceeds.
The UK believes Prince Group is a front for widespread online fraud, from romance scams to so-called pig butchering investment schemes. The UN estimates that more than 100,000 trafficked workers are held in its operations.
Li was sanctioned by the US Treasury in October 2025 as one of 146 Prince Group targets. It labeled him a “de facto illicit finance CFO” involved in “bulk cash smuggling and managing dirty money.”
London followed in March, listing him under its global human rights sanctions regime.
The US Justice Department moved to forfeit some 127,271 Bitcoin linked to the group, then worth about $15 billion. Cryptopolitan reported that Chen was arrested in January in Cambodia and extradited to China.
In May, the High Court in Hong Kong froze about $1.1 billion in assets linked to Chen, Li, and dozens of companies, including HK$172 million held by Li.
Prince Group has denied the claims. It said last year that it “categorically rejects the notion that it or its chairman, Chen Zhi, has engaged in any unlawful activity.”
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