UDNEY PARK PLAYING FIELDS CALL FOR INVESTIGATION AFTER FURTHER REVELATIONS ABOUT SHADOWY OWNER
The Udney Park Playing Fields Foundation which is fighting to restore the Teddington grounds to community use, today called on the authorities to investigate their current ownership.
Their hard-hitting comments come after fresh revelations from the OCCRP (Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project) about the murky background and associations of the so-called Chinese businessman, Wu An Ming, who appears to have operated under various aliases.
Foundation Chair and prominent Teddington businessman, Jonathan Dunn told Teddington Town: “It is a complete fiasco that sports fields at Udney Park remain locked up and in the ownership of Mr Wu.
“The latest revelations show him to be the most inappropriate of custodians for fields that should be in community use.
“The authorities should really step in and confiscate the fields if these reports are true.
“There has been a pattern of evasion since Mr Wu purchased the site in 2022.
“He used a BVI (British Virgin Islands) registered company as a vehicle to buy the land and just before acquisition he changed the name of this company from Rich Creation Limited to Leisure Focus Limited.
“The reasons for his lack of transparency are only now becoming clear.”
In its latest report the OCCRP (Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project) reveals ‘multiple identities reveal ties between the Chinese business man and an alleged Cambodian ‘criminal conglomerate.’
The U.S. sanctioned “Chen Xiao’er” for his partnership in one firm with the head of a Cambodian corporate group that allegedly ran cyber-scam operations.
Reporters have now uncovered his other identities — and they show deeper connections to the conglomerate.
The man known as Wu An Ming in his dealings with Udney Park playing fields and who was glossed over in “sweeping sanctions” against a major Cambodian conglomerate appears to have played a far more significant role than was previously known in the corporate network, which the U.S. has labelled a “Transnational Criminal Organization.”
OCCRP has discovered that he participated under multiple identities in the Cambodia-headquartered Prince Group, which allegedly ran extensive cyber-scam operations.
Three out of four of those aliases were not listed in the recent sanctions notice.
In October, the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned a man known as “Chen Xiao’er” based on his partnership in just one company with Prince Group founder and chairman Chen Zhi.
Last month, OCCRP revealed that Chen Xiao’er also holds significant assets including Udney Park playing fields for which he paid £3.6m under the name Wu An Ming, but that alias was not listed by sanctions authorities.
Now, reporters have uncovered two more identities: Hu Shi, and his birth name Hu Xiaowei.
A closer look at those names shows that he has a deeper relationship with Chen Zhi, and the conglomerate, than U.S. authorities noted — including his ownership of two important Prince Group companies.
Under his birth name, Hu Xiaowei, he is reportedly being investigated in Taiwan for allegedly playing a major role in the Prince Group.
According to local media, prosecutors have labeled him “second in command” under the group’s chairman, Chen Zhi.
Taiwanese officials have not publicly connected Hu Xiaowei to his other aliases, and these links have not previously been reported in the media.
Teo Kang Yeow Cliff, a Singaporean man who previously managed some of the Prince Group companies, alleged that Hu Xiaowei held a position of significance to Chen Zhi.
Teo claimed that Chen Zhi, who was also born in China, looked up to Hu Xiaowei.
“Hu Xiaowei is the person who brought Chen Zhi into the business, online gaming,” Teo told OCCRP. “He’s a ‘big brother,’ that’s what Chen always said. He always treated him with utmost respect, that’s for sure.”
Teo was sued in Taiwan by four Prince Group firms that accused him of embezzlement. He told OCCRP he was afraid to travel to Taiwan and face charges, but he denied the allegations. He lost the case, and Taiwan has issued a warrant for his arrest.
Teo said he was speaking out, because he was unwittingly drawn into Prince Group business he thought was legitimate, but parted ways when he began to suspect otherwise.
The U.S. and U.K. imposed sanctions on the Prince Group in October in a coordinated action, while South Korea followed suit in late November.
All three governments accused the Prince Group of running compounds in Cambodia where workers were kept in conditions of slavery, and forced to carry out online scams that bilked billions from victims around the world.
The Prince Group has said the allegations are “baseless and appear aimed at justifying the unlawful seizure of assets worth billions of dollars.” According to OOCRP The conglomerate did not respond to a request for comment.
Hu Xiaowei did not respond to requests for comment emailed to his assistant, who had provided statements for OCCRP’s previous article, which identified Chen Xiao’er as Wu An Ming and revealed he owned London properties worth more than $44 million. The assistant declined to answer a question at the time about Hu Xiaowei’s multiple identities.
OCCRP has now confirmed Hu Xiaowei, Hu Shi, Chen Xiao’er and Wu An Ming are all identities used by the same person — and that he has held citizenship issued by at least four different countries.
Hu Xiaowei was born in 1982 in China’s eastern Jiangsu province, according to information from corporate registries.
The first public mention of him appears to be in Chinese state media reports from 2011, which cite authorities accusing him of leading the “Knight Attack Group” of criminal hackers.
The group was accused of hacking the servers of an online video game, according to media reports.
The group then directed online traffic of the game through their own servers, and skimmed off advertising revenues worth more than $10 million.
Authorities reportedly arrested 19 members of the group in 2011, and some were convicted the following year.
Hu Xiaowei, however, evaded arrest and fled the country, according to state-owned media.
He apparently returned to China sometime in the next few years, because he was arrested there in 2016 on charges of running an online gambling operation worth about $850 million, according to state media reports.
Journalists could not determine the outcome of that case, but by September 2017 Hu Xiaowei was in the U.S. where he was a director and shareholder in a medical investments company called New World Technology II Inc.
Carl Rausch, an American biotechnology entrepreneur who held 45.5 percent of the shares in that company, said Hu Xiaowei had been busted for illegal gambling in China, because he had refused to hand over a portion of the profits to corrupt authorities. He said Hu Xiaowei changed identities and acquired new citizenships in order to shake off Chinese law enforcement.
“He set up a Cyprus company so he could be inside the E.U., because he has somewhat of a following that he doesn’t want in China: the police,” Rausch told OCCRP.
In 2017, Cypriot records show, Hu Xiaowei applied for a passport under the European Union country’s citizenship-by-investment program, which has since been shut down. He received citizenship in 2018 under his birth name. However, corporate records show that he was using Hu Shi as the name in his Cypriot passport the following year.
Also in 2018, Hu Xiaowei acquired citizenship from Saint Kitts and Nevis under the name Chen Xiao’er. By 2020, he had changed the name in that passport to Wu An Ming.
By January, 2020, Hu Xiaowei had also become a Cambodian citizen under his birth name. Two years later, Cambodia appointed him an advisor “with a rank equivalent to minister” to Heng Samrin, a top politician who at the time served as president of the National Assembly.
OCCRP obtained a copy of the Saint Kitts and Nevis passport. The passport photo matches images of Hu Xiaowei, including those provided directly to OCCRP, as well as others posted in Chinese media and on company websites. The year and place of birth also match information for Hu Xiaowei found in company registry and citizenship records.