UK Imposes Sanctions on Cambodia's Tian Xu International Technology
The UK government released its latest "Global Human Rights" sanctions list on March 26 this year, including Cambodia's payment platform CoolCash's parent company Tian Xu International Technology PLC and its director Weizhi Pang (Cambodian name Visal Pang) as sanctioned entities. They are accused of being linked to the "Prince Group" and allegedly providing financial services, funds, or economic resources to entities involved in human rights violations.
According to the official UK government sanctions notice, Weizhi Pang holds both Cambodian and Chinese nationality, with aliases including Wei Zei Pang. In addition to being a director of Tian Xu International Technology, he is also a director of U-Life KH Super App Company Limited, the parent company of WOWNOW. He is listed as an individual sanction target, while Tian Xu International Technology is listed separately as a corporate entity, with sanction numbers GHR0184 and GHR0182 respectively.
The official notice also lists the operational website of Tian Xu International Technology as Coolcashcam.com (the CoolCash platform) and accuses the company of providing financial services, funds, economic resources, goods, or technical support to the Prince Group. The Prince Group is accused of operating multiple scam centers in Cambodia, with facilities involved in forced labor and severe human rights violations such as "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment".
Also included in the same sanctions list is another company associated with the Prince Group, BSquare Technology Co. Ltd. (number GHR0183), as well as individuals Soklim Eang and Legend Innovation Co. related to the Cambodian Hengxin real estate scam center, and significant members of the Prince Group, Thet Li, along with Xiaoyan Wang related to the Jinbei Group scam center. According to compliance research firm Kharon, another director of Tian Xu International Technology, Chen Bo, also serves as a director for at least eight sanctioned companies under the Prince Group, including Byex Exchange under BSquare, further confirming the organizational links between Tian Xu International Technology and the Prince Group network.
It should be noted that I have not yet found independent confirmation in English sources regarding the specific information that Tian Xu International Technology's payment service license in Cambodia has been revoked and is undergoing liquidation (the original license was reportedly issued on May 27, 2024, valid until 2030); according to Kharon, as of now, the CoolCash app is still available on the Google Play Store.
From a market mechanism perspective, this round of sanctions reflects the Western countries' crackdown on the Southeast Asian "pig-butchering" scam industry chain, extending from merely targeting the operators of scam centers to include associated fintech companies that provide payment channels, fund flows, and technical support. For companies like Tian Xu International Technology that operate legitimate consumer applications (such as the delivery platform WOWNOW) while being implicated in fraudulent payment operations, once listed on the sanctions list, their legitimate business lines will also be pressured due to compliance risks from banks and payment partners. This is precisely the "collateral" effect that current international anti-fraud financial sanctions aim to achieve—by cutting off funding and payment infrastructure, compressing the actual operational space of scam networks.
Source: Public Information
ABAB AI Insight
The Prince Group and its associated network have previously been the subject of joint sanctions by the US and UK multiple times—on October 2025, the US and UK launched the "largest joint sanctions" against the Prince Group, accusing its operational network of involving scam centers related to forced labor and human trafficking. The current sanctions against Tian Xu International Technology and Weizhi Pang are a continuation of this ongoing crackdown, not an isolated incident.
From a funding pathway perspective, the operation of multinational scam networks like the Prince Group heavily relies on local payment infrastructure to complete fund collection, laundering, and cross-border transfers. Tian Xu International Technology, through mobile payment wallets like CoolCash, has penetrated the Cambodian local payment market, providing necessary funding flow channels for the scam network. The sanctions notice also accuses it of providing "funds, economic resources, goods, or technology," indicating that its role may extend beyond payment services to involve broader resource delivery.
This aligns with the previous logic of the US Treasury's "collateral sanctions on associated financial institutions" against Russian oligarchs and Iranian oil networks—sanction targets are no longer limited to core operators of criminal networks but extend to seemingly "normal" associated fintech and payment companies. In terms of industry positioning, the Southeast Asian scam industry has recently formed a tripartite industrial chain of "scam center operations + local payment channels + cryptocurrency over-the-counter trading." The sanctioning of Tian Xu International Technology indicates that international law enforcement agencies are systematically dismantling the payment links within this industrial chain.
Essentially, this is a strike against the pricing power and survival space of the gray industrial chain—mechanism-wise, the continued operation of scam networks heavily relies on stable local payment licenses and banking relationships to handle fund inflows and outflows. Once core payment channels are sanctioned and cut off, even if the network's operational capacity remains intact, it will be forced to shrink due to the inability to transfer funds normally. This "striking payments, cutting funds" pathway is lower in execution cost and faster in effect compared to directly targeting the scam centers themselves, which is also a core consideration for the US and UK in continuously expanding the scope of sanctions from the scam groups themselves to associated fintech companies.
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