Asean faces test on governance, financial crime, and Trump ahead of KL summit
From Jamil A Ghani
With Asean leaders gathering in Kuala Lumpur from Oct 26 to 28 under Malaysia’s chairmanship theme of “Inclusivity and Sustainability”, events beyond the formal agenda are already shaping the conversation.
On Oct 14, the US department of justice unsealed an indictment against Chinese-born Chen Zhi, chairman of Cambodia’s Prince Holding Group, alleging forced labour “scam compounds” and multi-billion dollar cryptocurrency fraud. The department simultaneously filed a civil forfeiture action, describing it as its largest-ever cryptocurrency seizure – 127,271 bitcoins, worth roughly US$15 billion.
That same day, the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), in coordination with the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, sanctioned 146 individuals and 117 entities linked to what it described as the Prince Group Transnational Criminal Organization.
In a parallel move, FinCEN issued a Section 311 rule under the USA PATRIOT Act,…
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