Overview
- Japanese police tracked and arrested Hu Xiaowei, 44, in Osaka after identifying him on hotel CCTV and say he was detained on June 14 for filing a fraudulent change-of-address to obtain residency.
- Hu is a U.S. and U.K.-sanctioned figure linked to the Prince Group, the network that U.S. prosecutors say ran large-scale ‘pig-butchering’ crypto scams and which prompted a U.S. forfeiture request for about 127,271 Bitcoin.
- Singapore authorities have named Hu and associate Qiu Wei Ren in money-laundering investigations and say more than S$600 million in assets have been seized or placed under prohibition in connection with the case.
- Investigators in Japan seized smartphones and other electronic devices and are reviewing corporate filings and hotel CCTV while noting a Tokyo trading company's capital tied to Hu rose sharply between 2023 and 2026.
- The arrest follows prior regional moves including arrests and extraditions of senior Prince Group figures and is likely to lead to further asset actions, charges or extraditions as multilateral probes continue.