British prosecutors have frozen a $32.7-million London mansion owned by a Chinese man with Cambodian citizenship on suspicion the property was purchased with illicit funds.
The individual, Yu Cong, has not been charged with any crime in the U.K.
The Proceeds of Crime unit of the U.K. Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) submitted documents to the land registry on July 3 showing the freeze on a mansion Yu Cong purchased in July 2024. The freeze has not been previously made public, and the documents were obtained by Transparency International U.K. and shared with OCCRP.
The CPS did not respond to a request for further information about the nature of its investigation, and about the origin of the funds used to buy the mansion.
The mansion in London’s exclusive Highgate neighbourhood was previously owned by Nurali Aliyev, the grandson of Kazakhstan’s former president.
The property had been frozen by the National Crime Agency (NCA) in 2019, which filed an “unexplained wealth order” against Aliyev. The order and the asset freeze were overturned in court the following year, OCCRP reported.
Aliyev then sold the mansion to Yu Cong, property documents show. There is no evidence of any ongoing association between Aliyev and Yu Cong.
Aliyev said he had never met Yu Cong personally.
"Mr Yu Cong approached me through Sotheby’s UK brokers regarding his interest in purchasing the property. Following the listing and subsequent agreement of the transaction terms, he proceeded with the purchase," Aliyev said in an emailed response to questions.
In 2020, Aliyev told OCCRP through a spokesperson that the U.K. court judgement overturning the freeze order demonstrated how “the NCA obtained the Orders on an inaccurate basis as part of a flawed investigation which was entirely without merit.”
Yu Cong did not respond to requests for comment regarding the transactions or the origin of the funds he used to purchase the property from Aliyev.
Land Registry filings show that Yu Cong also purchased an $8-million apartment in August 2022 at Gasholders Building, a 19th century facility repurposed as a residential complex near London’s King Cross Station. This property is not subject to the CPS freeze order. The land title was transferred to an individual named Xu Peng in July 2024.
Xu Peng did not respond to a request for comment, and the precise nature of his association with Yu Cong is unknown. However, the two men have a mutual acquaintance in common: Yuan Yihua, who was the subject of a separate CPS asset freeze in May, as OCCRP reported.
For the title transfer of the property, Xu Peng listed a personal correspondence address at a house owned by Yuan Yihua.
Yu Cong owns two U.K. companies that list their registration addresses at a separate central London apartment owned by Yuan Yihua. That apartment was also subject to the asset freeze order in May.
Meanwhile, Yu Cong and Yuan Yihua listed the same residential address in Singapore company registries — a luxury condominium near Orchard Road, an upscale commercial area. Both men are also shareholders of separate firms based out of the same Singapore office address.
Like Yu Cong, Yuan Yihua is from China and also holds Cambodian citizenship. Corporate registry documents collected by the civil society organization LICADHO show that Yu Cong and Yuan Yihua have both chaired companies in Cambodia.
Yuan Yihua did not respond to a request for comment.
The freeze orders on properties owned by Yuan Yihua and Yu Cong come amid an aggressive campaign by the CPS to crack down on U.K. assets suspected to be purchased with illicit funds.
“Prosecutors from across the organisation will now focus on putting asset recovery at the forefront of prosecution strategy,” the CPS said in a June 4 statement announcing the launch of its new strategy.
NOTE: This story has been updated with comment from Nurali Aliyev.
Source: Original article