foreign office

His network's assets include a £100m office building on central London, a £12m mansion in North London and seventeen flats in the city, said the UK foreign office on Tuesday.

The foreign office said Mr Chen and the Prince Group built casinos and compounds used as scam centres and laundered the proceeds.

Four businesses linked to the alleged scams - The Prince Group, Jin Bei Group, Golden Fortune Resorts World and Byex Exchange - have also been sanctioned, said the foreign office.

People working in scam centres are often foreign nationals lured by the promise of a legitimate job, and then forced to carry out scams under threat of torture, the foreign office said.

These scammers operate on an "industrial scale", including in the UK, using tricks like fake romantic relationships to lure victims into being scammed, said the foreign office.