Billionaire scam kingpin in Southeast Asia arrested and extradited to China
Plus: first AI IPOs give Chinese challengers much-needed cash and Beijing tries to push back on Meta-Manus deal
Welcome back—there’s good news in the fight against online scams after the billionaire kingpin behind one of the world’s largest operations was arrested in Cambodia and extradited to China.
China-born Chen Zhi is the head of Cambodian conglomerate Prince Group, which is allegedly behind a scam network that makes billions of dollars each year from pig butchering, a form of fraud that typically uses online romance to swindle victims. It’s highly lucrative, with American citizens estimated to have lost $10 billion to such scams in 2024 alone.
Chen was indicted by the US in October when authorities seized an estimated $15 billion in Bitcoin that was said to be owned by him across a network of crypto wallets. The UK also seized assets, and Singapore has investigated Prince Group.
We wrote at the time of the indictment:
One of Cambodia’s most prominent companies, Prince Group runs businesses across real estate, finance and entertainment. But Chen is said to be directly involved in the operations, which include developing scam compounds that rely on trafficked, forced labour to carry out ‘pig butchering’ scams to swindle victims out of money.
Chen has been a Cambodian citizen since 2014 and he maintains close links to politicians. That includes former leader Hun Sen who he’s been photographed with many times. Prince Group allegedly laundered money into legitimate-looking business fronts which helped forge these connections.
Media reports suggest illicit businesses like Prince Group underpin parts of Cambodia’s economy through their lucrative revenue. As such, Cambodia has shielded them from criticism. While there were at least 13 criminal cases filed against the group in China over the last five years, there are reports that Prince Group maintained connections to Chinese officials, who had promised to help with legal troubles.
Now it has yielded to China.
Southeast Asia-based organized crime analyst Jason Tower told the New York Times that “the last thing the Chinese want is for Chen Zhi to end up in US custody.”
That may explain the very public extradition. Chinese state television showed Chen handcuffed and hooded as he was detained and flown to China.
It remains to be seen exactly how the move will impact the scam industry in Southeast Asia. Analysts suggested activities may move to different countries and fragment into smaller networks that are tougher to track.
The apprehension of Chen removes one major figure, but the system that sustained it remains intact. As with the Lernaean Hydra of Greek myth, cutting off one head may not kill the beast.
Have a great rest of the week,
Jon
PS: I announced my new venture last week, a consulting business to help tech companies navigate today’s new era of PR and marketing. It’s called Fully Drafted. Drop me a line if you’re building something ambitious and want to sharpen your story.
Follow the Asia Tech Review LinkedIn page for updates on posts published here and interesting things that come our way. If you’re a news junkie, the ATR Telegram news feed has you covered with news as-it-happens or join the community chat here.
China’s first AI IPOs give much-needed capital to early movers
We got a taste of history in China as the world’s first AI company IPOs took place, with two listings in the same week in Hong Kong.
Zhipu went first, raising $558 million with its float on Wednesday, becoming the first LLM company to go public. Close rival MiniMax entered the market days later with a $620 million raise on Friday.
Both stocks started public market life well with MiniMax shares up over 100%, and Zhipu up by more than 65%. But the real story is just how much these IPOs were needed.
We know AI business models are heavily loss making, for now. That’s evidenced by the billions of dollars that top US companies, which burn through the most capital, have made in just the last few weeks.
SoftBank just completed its full $40 billion investment in OpenAI
X.ai just closed a $20 billion fundraise
Anthropic is reportedly raising $10 billion to follow the $13 billion in fresh capital it closed in October.
China’s AI companies don’t make anything like as much money as their US peers, as we noted recently. But they are a slave to the same economics and that means they constantly need capital top-ups.
Zhipu lost $329 million last year. Its revenue is growing at an impressive rate, but it had a little over a year of runway left in the tank before this listing, according to numbers from its IPO filing.
MiniMax meanwhile, lost $512 million from January to October as its costs spiraled due to R&D and more. It had less than 18 months of runway left based on figures within its IPO prospectus document.
The income from these IPOs will stretch their runway and give them the financial muscle to develop their businesses. Investors will believe that the strong revenue growth each company has seen will continue and, twinned with increased operational efficiency, turn these companies into profit-making entities.
Being public will at least allow them easier access to future fundraising when that’s needed, particularly as and when they list on exchanges in mainland China. The US seems unlikely based on current tensions, the Manus exit and examples like Didi. But listing a successful Chinese AI company on enemy soil in the future would be a huge validation for China so who knows what lies in the future.
China ‘reviewing’ Meta-Manus deal in ultimate show of face
In a move that will surprise nobody and likely be futile, China announced its officials are reviewing Meta’s proposed $2 billion acquisition of AI startup Manus.
Manus relocated to Singapore from China the middle of last year, a move that enabled this deal to be possible. The move and the eventual outcome will have infuriated Beijing, which is building up China’s technology self-sufficiency play. Any suggestion that leaving for a different country can advance your business in ways that can’t be imagined if you stay in China, clearly jeopardises that project.
China has kicked up a fuss in major M&A in the past, but this one seems unlikely and $2 billion is hardly a monster deal, despite it being a major win for Manus and its backers.
China
China’s push for chipmaking equipment self-sufficiency accelerated sharply in 2025, with domestically developed tools reaching 35% of the market by the end of 2025, up from 25% in 2024 and ahead of a 30% target link
Baidu and Huawei collectively accounted for more than 70% of China’s market for cloud services built on home-grown GPUs in the first half of 2025 link
Alibaba is launching an AI-powered service via Amap that lets restaurants generate 3D interior visuals from photos or videos, cutting marketing costs link
Shanghai has announced a slew of new investments in hi-tech industries ranging from chips to AI and aviation link
Nvidia has “fired up” production of H200 AI data centre chips in the expectation it will soon be able to resume sales in China after striking a deal with the White House, CEO Jensen Huang said link
But the Chinese government asked some tech firms to temporarily pause plans to buy Nvidia’s H200 chips link
Still, Nvidia is demanding full upfront payment from Chinese buyers seeking its H200 AI chips link
The US Commerce Department dropped plans to impose restrictions on China-made drones link
Video app Kuaishou repositioned around AI-generated video, taking its shares on a 88% surge over the past year link
China will probe aggressive price wars among food delivery platforms run by tech groups including Meituan and Alibaba, seeking to curb cutthroat competition link
Five years on from a derailed IPO, Ant Group has quietly built a fast-growing international business running a global digital wallet payments network that could one day rival Visa and Mastercard—Ant International grew revenue 20% to 25% in 2025 to about $3.7B, nearly 10% of Ant Group’s total, up from under $1B, or about 5%, in 2019 link
HSG, formerly Sequoia Capital China, is reportedly raising a continuation fund to acquire some of its ByteDance shares at a valuation of $350B-$370B link
China breached email systems used by congressional staff on several powerful US House committees, including those focused on China, foreign affairs, intelligence and the military link
India
Apple has now exported more than $50B in iPhones from India since 2022 as its efforts in the market continue to accelerate link
Articul8, an enterprise AI company spun out of Intel, raised more than half of a planned $70M Series B at a $500M pre-money valuation to expand across Asia, including India, Japan and South Korea, and push into Europe link
Aivar, an AI services partner for enterprises that helps turn experimentation into production, raised $4.6M link
Razorpay reportedly invited banker pitches for its IPO, which is aiming to raise nearly $550M link
UpGrad pulled out of talks to acquire Unacademy over valuation differences link
Southeast Asia
Singapore-based accelerator firm and VC fund Antler raised $160M to double down on AI startups, it is aiming to do 500 AI deals this year having made more than 400 general investments across all areas last year link
We wrote about Grab’s acquisition spree last year, and that continued into the new year as the Singapore-based company confirmed it acquired Chinese AI robotics firm Infermove to strengthen its last-mile delivery capabilities link
Grab also partnered ST Engineering to launch a drone food delivery pilot in Singapore link
Indonesian prosecutors opened proceedings in a graft trial against former education minister Nadiem Makarim over the procurement of Chromebooks for use in schools link
GIC is among the frontrunners bidding to lead a new $10B funding round for Anthropic that would value the US AI company, which develops the Claude service, at around $350B—that’s up from $183B in September when it raised $13B link
Singapore is embracing agentic AI in banking, with lenders deploying systems that can complete in minutes work that once took private bankers a full day link
Razer has unveiled AI-powered products, including over-ear headphones and a high-performance workstation PC link
Indonesia is among the countries leading the push to develop its own sovereign AI capabilities—operator Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison and GoTo are behind Sahabat-AI, an open-source LLM for Bahasa Indonesia which will soon have a chat app link
DayOne Data Centers raised over $2B to fund expansion in Europe and Asia link
Asia-Pacific’s screen economy is set for steady growth through 2030, driven almost entirely by streaming, creator-led video and connected TV as traditional television declines, according to Media Partners Asia link
Singapore opened consultations on a plan to allow companies to pursue simultaneous IPOs in the city-state and on Nasdaq link
Indonesia and Malaysia temporarily blocked access to Grok over sexualised images link
South Korea
Naver is marketing its cloud services in the Middle East and Southeast Asia as a neutral AI alternative to US and Chinese tech giants link
Samsung posted record quarterly profit as surging demand for AI services boosted its memory chip business link
Taiwan
A deep dive into how Apple and TSMC’s partnership shifted power dynamics and made the modern semiconductor business link
Taiwan’s exports to the US overtook those to China, including Hong Kong, for the first time in 26 years in 2025, driven by AI-fueled demand for high-tech goods link
Taiwanese prosecutors filed additional indictments against Tokyo Electron’s Taiwan unit and three individuals over the alleged theft of TSMC trade secrets link
Foxconn’s Q4 revenue jumped 22% to record high on AI demand link
It was a similar story for TSMC, which saw fourth-quarter revenue jump 20% link