Brought up in Fujian province in south-eastern China, he started with a small, and apparently not very successful internet gaming company, and moved to Cambodia in either late 2010 or 2011, where he began working in the then-booming real estate sector.
His arrival coincided with the start of a speculative property boom in Cambodia. It was fuelled by the availability of large tracts of land expropriated by powerful, politically-connected figures and by a flood of Chinese capital.
Some of it was pouring in on the tail end of Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative to export Chinese-made infrastructure, and some of it was from individual Chinese investors seeking more affordable alternatives to China’s overheated property market. The number of Chinese tourists visiting Cambodia was also rising fast.
The skyline of the capital Phnom Penh changed dramatically. The characterful, low-rise cityscape of mustard-coloured French colonial mansions was transformed into another Asian high-rise forest of glass and steel towers.
The transformation of Sihanoukville, a once quiet little seaside resort, was even more extreme. It was not just Chinese holidaymakers and property speculators heading there, but also gamblers – gambling is illegal in China.
New casinos sprang up, alongside gaudy, luxury hotels and apartment blocks. There was plenty of money to be made.
Even so, Chen Zhi’s trajectory was startling.
In 2014 he became a Cambodian citizen, giving up his Chinese nationality. This enabled him to buy land in his own name, but required a minimum investment or donation to the government of $250,000.
It was never clear where Chen Zhi’s money came from. When applying for a bank account on the Isle of Man in 2019 he listed an unnamed uncle who he said had given him $2m to start his first property company in 2011, but no evidence for this was ever provided.