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InvestReports disagree2 publishers2 min readPublished

Frozen London property tied to Prince Group adds up to £204 million across five addresses

UK authorities have frozen the £8.9 million London penthouse of Thet Li, alleged Prince Group finance chief, The Times reported. The flat is the smallest of the five London properties on the paper's list.

The Investor · Invest desk

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Photograph accompanying Frozen London property tied to Prince Group adds up to £204 million across five addresses
Photo: occrp.org
City office building dwarfs Li's frozen London penthouse Values of Prince Group-linked assets UK authorities have frozen or seized, in £ million, as The Times reported via Decrypt.

Four figures in £ million: Thet Li's frozen penthouse, £8.9 million; the City of London office building tied to Chen Zhi, £100 million; the Belgravia townhouse linked to Wu An Ming, £53 million; Li's seized watches and jewelry, £10.6 million.

City office building dwarfs Li's frozen London penthouse
FigureValueNoteClaim
Li's frozen penthouse8.9 £ million1
Chen-linked City office building100 £ million7
Wu-linked Belgravia townhouse53 £ million8
Li's seized watches and jewelry10.6 £ million9

What happened

  • The freezing order sits on the flat's Land Registry record and followed a Foreign Office investigation.
  • The UK sanctioned Li in March under its global human rights regime, citing his links to Chen Zhi and Prince Group's Cambodian scam centers.
  • Orders also cover a £12 million St John's Wood mansion and a £100 million City of London office building tied to Prince Group chairman Chen Zhi.
  • Assets tied to Chen's alleged deputy, Wu An Ming, are frozen too: a £30 million Holland Park mansion and a £53 million Belgravia townhouse.
  • On Monday authorities go to court to keep Li's £10.6 million of watches and jewelry, plus £92,570 in cash, under seizure.

Why it matters

  • exposure Any lender, buyer or agent asked to deal in the flat now meets a freezing order on its title record, so the check falls at title stage, before any money moves.
  • constraint The freeze stops Li selling, renting or profiting from the flat, and the reports describe no UK step to take ownership. Any payout to scam victims, whom Cryptobriefing says the freezes could matter to, needs a further move.
  • contradiction The two reports value the US Bitcoin claim at about $15 billion and about $14 billion. On the 127,271 coins Cryptobriefing cites, that implies roughly $117,900 and $110,000 a coin.
  • precedent The UK listed Li about five months after the US Treasury did in October 2025, so a sanctions screen built on one government's list can run months behind another's.

The five freezes sum to about £203.9 million [13], and the City office building alone is 49% of it [15], against 4.4% for the flat [14]. Cryptobriefing reports a further London mansion tied to Li, valued at about 170 million yuan ($24 million), that Decrypt's account does not list [21], so the total may be understated.

That skew is where the compliance angle gets tested. A flat owned by one man mostly touches the man. An office building worth £100 million [7] can have a lender, a managing agent and tenants paying rent into someone's account, and each of those is a firm standing next to frozen property. The reports name none of them. We think the exposure is real but so far hypothetical, and we would call it wrong if no filing, court notice or regulator statement ever names a counterparty to any of the five.

Two other outcomes are as plausible. The orders could stay confined to the named owners, with the cost landing on them alone. Or the sweep could widen: Hong Kong's court froze roughly HK$8.9 billion in May 2026 [22], and Wu was reportedly arrested in Japan in June [11]. Prince Group denies wrongdoing. It said last year that it "categorically rejects the notion that it or its chairman, Chen Zhi, has engaged in any unlawful activity." [10]

The two accounts also disagree on the flat. Cryptobriefing puts it at £9 million and dates the freeze to March 2026 [19]. Decrypt, citing The Times, gives £8.9 million [1], says Li paid that sum in 2022 [2], and places the March action as his UK sanction [5]. We use the Times figure because a purchase record sits behind it.

What to watch

  • Monday's court application on Li's £10.6 million of watches and jewelry and £92,570 in cash: whether the seizure is continued.
  • Any filing, court notice or regulator statement that names a lender, tenant or managing agent for the £100 million City office building.
  • Whether the UK moves from freezing orders to forfeiture proceedings on any of the five properties.

Clarity's read

What the record supports and how the coverage leans. The claims behind it follow.

Reality

Evidence55
Adoption
Insufficient
Hype gap+15
Incentives
Insufficient
Confidence55
Why these scores

Claim ledger

Ranked by verification strength, evidence, and original report placement.

  1. [1]

    UK authorities have frozen a London penthouse belonging to Thet Li, the alleged finance chief of Prince Group, valued at £8.9 million, The Times reported on Sunday.

    ReportedSupportedSource: The Times, as reported by Decrypt2 sources— create a free account to open themView cited source
  2. [2]

    Li, 39, paid £8.9 million in 2022 for the 13th-floor apartment near St James's Park, according to the report.

    ReportedSupportedSource: The Times, as reported by Decrypt2 sources— create a free account to open themView cited source
  3. [3]

    Authorities placed a freezing order on the flat's Land Registry record following a Foreign Office investigation.

    ReportedSupportedSource: The Times, as reported by Decrypt2 sources— create a free account to open themView cited source

Sources

2 independent publishers whose own reporting we read for this story.

  1. cryptobriefing.com

    1 article · October 12, 2026

    UK freezes $12M London penthouse of alleged Prince Group finance chief
  2. decrypt.co

    1 article · October 12, 2026

    UK Freezes $12M London Penthouse of Alleged Prince Group Finance Chief

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