The governments of Taiwan and Palau have both been warned that offers of investment from the Cambodian conglomerate Prince Group represent threats to each nation’s security and sovereignty.
Briefings to the president of Palau and Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs delivered within the last month by the Hawaii-based think tank Pacific Economics described the Prince Group as being “deeply involved in transnational criminal activity,” citing evidence previously uncovered by RFA and other organizations.
Besides the risk from alleged illicit activity carried out by Prince, which is led by a Chinese national with Cambodian citizenship, its secretive transnational ties could be leveraged as a backdoor for Beijing to exert influence abroad, Pacific Economics suggested.
The warning was the culmination of a half year study of foreign investors in Palau, part of a U.S.-government funded project that commissioned Pacific Economics to put together the briefing report.
The think tank analyzed the surge in wealthy individuals investing in the tiny island nation. Many of those investors may have criminal ties, according to the think tank’s founder, Jarod Baker.
“Everyone on the ground sees what’s happening,” Baker told RFA. “It’s an insane amount of money being spent there.”
In his presentation to President Surangel Whipps, Baker offered the Prince Group as a case study of potentially criminally tainted investments in Palau.
In a statement issued to the Phnom Penh Post last Friday, Prince Group called the think tank’s findings “defamatory” and denied that it had any investments in Palau.
However, Prince Group’s founder and chairman, Chen Zhi, is listed as director and 37.5% shareholder of the Palau-registered Grand Legend International Asset Management Group Co., Ltd., according to corporate records bearing Chen’s signature seen by RFA.
An archived map on the Prince Group website lists Palau as one of sites of its investments. A former employee who is not being named as he was not authorized to speak on the subject confirmed to RFA that the island nation is among the company’s territories with holdings.
A three-year RFA investigation published last February uncovered allegations that the Prince Group, which has deep ties to the Cambodian government, was involved in large-scale money laundering and human trafficking.
A 99-year lease
RFA understands that Pacific Economics identified three proposed hotel and resort projects in Palau linked to the Prince Group with an estimated value of $1 billion – more than three times the country’s annual economic output.
Among those investments was a 99-year lease for the Ngerbelas, an uninhabited, tree-covered island at the northern tip of the chain that makes up Palau, according to documents seen by RFA. The same island is named on the archived Prince Group list of investment sites. According to Baker, Prince acquired the island at a bargain basement price of $1 million.
“Land is Palau’s biggest asset and these leases tie it up for five generations with no obligation to maintain it or create jobs,” Baker told RFA.
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While avoiding commenting directly on Prince’s investments, a spokesperson for the Office of the President of Palau told RFA that the country has “faced challenges in vetting foreign investors.”
“As a small island developing state, we aggressively pursue investment and developmental partners but also recognize that some individuals or organizations may view us as vulnerable targets,” the spokesperson said in an email.
“To help counter this, we are strengthening our policies to foster legitimate business partnerships and deter those involved in illegitimate dealings,” the person said, noting that Palau has joined Interpol and enhanced cooperation with U.S. intelligence and crime agencies.
Partners working with Prince to buy land on Palau raised concerns, Baker, of Pacific Economics, said. Alongside Prince Group founder Chen Zhi, documents seen by RFA showed a person called Rose Wang listed as a director of the holding company that now has the lease to Ngerbelas. Also known as Wang Guodan, the longtime Chinese expatriate has lived in Palau for more than two decades, during which she developed an impressive network of contacts.
Wang was designated an “undesirable alien” by the Palau government in 2022 -- a status that usually renders a person’s visa null and stops future applications from being approved.
The designation appears to stem from earlier contretemps. In 2018, then-President of Palau Tommy Remengesau, Jr. was photographed meeting with U.S.-sanctioned triad kingpin Wan Kuok Koi, whom he later claimed he met through Wang. Wang has claimed that she has no connection to Wan.
Asked about her involvement with the Prince Group investment, Wang denied having anything to do with it.
“That’s not me. I don’t even know Chen Zhi,” she told RFA. “I have nothing to do with Prince’s business,” she said.
However, Palau corporate records seen by RFA for Grand Legend International Asset Management Group – the company in which Prince Group’s chairman has a 37.5% stake – give Wang as the firm’s registered agent on the island and a hotel owned by her as its registered address.
Speaking to RFA, Wang again denied knowing Wan Kuok Koi but said she was placed on Palau’s “undesirable alien” list due to an error in a news report. She said her lawyer successfully had her name removed from the list.
She remains in Palau and continues to run her businesses, a hotel and a restaurant.
“I’m not some middleman — I’m a legitimate businessperson,” she said.
However, Wang is widely reported to have deep ties to the Chinese state, and her affiliations raise questions over whether she has sought to influence Palau toward Beijing.
For example, she held leadership roles within the Palau Overseas Chinese Federation, which operates under the patronage of China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and aims to corral Palau’s Chinese diaspora into line with the CCP.
Such organizations are a crucial tool of Chinese foreign policy in the handful of countries like Palau that recognize Taiwan as an independent nation, experts have said. Beijing refuses to have formal ties with recognizers of Taiwan and uses diaspora organizations and well-connected overseas Chinese entrepreneurs as channels for unofficial diplomacy.
While Baker saw no evidence of Prince being involved in such efforts, he did not exclude the possibility.
“China has used transnational criminal organizations to achieve state priorities for centuries. China doesn’t mind so long as they’re patriotic,” Baker said. “It’s not a stretch for me to imagine that China would use Prince to their benefit.
“Rose Wang being on registrations with Chen Zhi tells me that Chen Zhi is strategic,” Baker added.
Indeed, last spring a purported former agent of China’s secret police told RFA that the Prince Group had been involved in planning an abandoned plot to kidnap a Chinese dissident from Taiwan. Prince denied that allegation.
‘Substantial’ presence in Taiwan
Since 2018 the Prince Group has had a substantial presence in Taiwan, with one of its flagship corporate offices occupying an entire building just one block from the office of the country’s president.
Registered as a “foreign-invested” rather than “Chinese-invested” entity, the group has avoided regulatory scrutiny and restrictions on Chinese capital in Taiwan.
According to registration records, the Prince Group’s Taiwan operations focus primarily on real estate transactions, investment consulting, and investment immigration programs. Until last year, the company actively courted Taiwanese investors, hosting investment conferences and organizing trips to Cambodia. It marketed serviced apartments in Phnom Penh, touting an annual return of at least 6%.
The company remains active in Taiwan, with public job postings seeking hires for multiple positions, including accounting and marketing specialists.
A spokesperson for Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs declined to comment directly on the Prince Group, but acknowledged to RFA that “China has long been utilizing specific Chinese-background businessmen and even criminal organizations with specific purposes to infiltrate our diplomatic ally, Palau.”
“Any company operating in Taiwan found to be involved in illegal activities will be dealt with according to the law by the responsible domestic authorities,” the person said.
Edited by Boer Deng.