UK freezes £30m London mansion of alleged Prince Group associate

The record

A mansion near Holland Park in west London, valued at about £30 million ($39 million), has been placed under a UK asset freeze, according to OCCRP. The reporting network found filings submitted to the UK Land Registry on 5 October 2026 that record the freeze and tie it to Britain’s March 2026 sanctions designation of Hu Xiaowei, a China-born businessman alleged to be a senior figure in Cambodia’s Prince Group.

According to OCCRP, the property has been jointly owned since 2024 by Hu and Chen Shuting, whom OCCRP describes as an associate. It is the second London home connected to Hu to be frozen in as many months.

A £53 million townhouse in Belgravia

In September OCCRP reported that a Belgravia townhouse bought in October 2023 for £53 million (about $72 million) by Zhao Chen, a China-born Cypriot citizen, had also been frozen. The freeze cited her association with “Wu An Ming”, a UK asset freeze target. OCCRP established that Wu An Ming is one of several names used by Hu, that the two are married, and that Cypriot records show they acquired citizenship together in 2018. Zhao Chen has not been sanctioned. The Land Registry documents were obtained by Transparency International and shared with OCCRP.

When the UK government announced the sanctions on 26 March 2026, it described Hu as a long-standing associate of Prince Group chairman Chen Zhi, linked to the group’s financial network under three different aliases, and said that “a number of London properties will be frozen”.

Four jurisdictions, one network

The US Treasury first sanctioned Hu on 14 October 2025, under the name Chen Xiao’er, as part of a joint US-UK action against 146 targets in what it designated the Prince Group transnational criminal organisation. On the same day, federal prosecutors in Brooklyn unsealed an indictment charging Chen Zhi with wire fraud conspiracy and money laundering conspiracy over forced-labour scam compounds in Cambodia, and filed a civil forfeiture complaint against about 127,271 bitcoin, then worth roughly $15 billion.

On 23 June 2026 the Treasury designated Hu under his own name, calling him the organisation’s “second-in-command” and listing companies he controls in the British Virgin Islands, Hong Kong and Singapore. The same day Singapore police said Hu, 44, was under investigation for money laundering, that assets in his bank and securities accounts had been seized in January 2026, and that he had left the country before their operations began in October 2025. OCCRP also reports asset freezes against him in Hong Kong and an indictment in Taiwan.

The responses

Hu did not respond to OCCRP’s requests for comment, and Zhao Chen did not respond either. OCCRP said it could not reach Chen Shuting. Prince Group and Chen Zhi have repeatedly denied any illegal activity.

Questions that remain unanswered

How were the two London purchases financed, and did any lender or conveyancer raise concerns at the time? How much UK property linked to Hu remains outside the freezes, given that OCCRP previously identified about $45 million of it? And will the UK move from freezing these assets to seeking their recovery through the courts?

An asset freeze is an administrative sanctions measure, not a criminal finding, and it does not transfer ownership. Hu has not been charged in the UK. The Singapore case is an investigation, the US indictment against Chen Zhi contains allegations that have not been proven in court, and every person named here is presumed innocent.

Based on reporting from: OCCRP · 15 October 2026; OCCRP · 17 September 2026; Singapore Police Force · 23 June 2026; US Treasury · Prince Group designation · 14 October 2025; US Treasury · Hu Xiaowei designation · 23 June 2026; US Attorney’s Office EDNY · Chen Zhi indictment · 14 October 2025; UK Government · sanctions announcement · 26 March 2026.