Global accounting firm BDO has ended its professional relationship with DW Capital Holdings, a Singapore-based family office accused by U.S. and U.K. regulators of being part of a vast global fraud network.
According to company filings reviewed by the Financial Times, two BDO employees — including the firm’s head of company secretarial services in Singapore — resigned as company secretaries for DW Capital shortly after the U.S. Treasury sanctioned the entity in October.
BDO had originally helped set up DW Capital in 2018 and listed its Singapore headquarters as the business address in the company’s records.
The sanctions stem from a broader crackdown on Cambodia’s Prince Group, which authorities described as a “transnational criminal empire” behind a $1 trillion online scam industry centred in Southeast Asia. Prosecutors allege the group used trafficked workers to run large-scale fraud operations and laundered the proceeds through companies across Asia and various offshore jurisdictions.
U.S. officials have seized about $15 billion in bitcoin allegedly connected to the network and charged Chen Zhi, the 37-year-old Cambodian-Chinese founder of Prince Group, with wire fraud and money-laundering offences.
DW Capital, Chen Zhi’s family office, appeared on the U.S. sanctions list, alongside Chen Xiuling, a Singaporean national and director of several related companies. The family office’s website — now offline — previously claimed eligibility for tax incentives from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), which has since confirmed it is investigating the firm.
Singapore’s police have also raided entities linked to Prince Group, seizing about S$150 million (US$115 million) in assets, including a yacht, luxury cars, and high-value liquor.
BDO stated that its internal anti-money-laundering procedures led it to terminate the relationship after the sanctions became public:
“We take our responsibilities seriously and have a robust AML programme. This enabled us to identify the company as an unsuitable client, and we immediately ended our relationship,” the firm said.
DW Capital, Prince Group, and both Chens did not respond to requests for comment.
In a related development, Singapore’s parliament this week approved a law introducing mandatory caning for convicted scammers, with penalties ranging from six to 24 strokes.
