SINGAPORE – They were identified in a criminal indictment filed in New York on Oct 8, 2025, as the co-conspirators of scam kingpin Chen Zhi, with few clues about where they lived and operated.

Over the past six months, The Straits Times, working with investigative journalism group Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), combed through hundreds of pages of official records to unmask the second co-conspirator, a key figure in the multi-billion dollar scam syndicate.

The search uncovered a global web of shell companies, and revealed the sophisticated system used by Chen Zhi and his company Prince Holding Group to launder billions of dollars in funds obtained on the back of foreigners forced to work in scam compounds in Cambodia.

Co-conspirator 2 is Chen Xing. Born in Shanghai in 1986, he changed his name to Chen Sokly after obtaining Cambodian citizenship around the end of 2017, according to the Cambodian government gazette.

ST and OCCRP confirmed his identity by matching details of his corporate history across jurisdictions, his acquired citizenships in Cambodia and Cyprus, and his former places of residences in Singapore and the United States.

Like many others in the Prince Group network, Sokly created multiple identities across jurisdictions. In some circles in Singapore, he was known as the wealthy businessman Martin Chen.

The indictment, which led to the forfeiture of 127,271 bitcoins by the US govern...