The owner of playing fields in Teddington has been arrested in Japan.

Japanese police arrested Mr Wu, the owner of Teddington's Udney Park playing fields and an alleged associate of Cambodia-based Prince Group which is accused of being one of Asia's biggest crime organisations that engaged in scamming, extortion, and forced labor.

Mr Wu, whose real name is Hu Xiaowei, has been arrested in Osaka, Japan, according to a police interview given to Kyodo, Japan's leading news agency, and shared with the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) on Monday, 17 August.

The US, the UK and South Korea sanctioned the Prince Group at the end of last year, while several jurisdictions have frozen assets linked to the group, and Mr Wu was sanctioned in the UK in March after the Chair of Udney Park Community Fields Foundation, Jonathan Dunn, previously wrote to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) asking it to sanction him ,

The conglomerate is allegedly part of a booming criminal industry in Southeast Asia, which uses "sophisticated schemes, including scams in which people are lured into fake romantic relationships, to defraud victims on an industrial scale," the UK Foreign Office revealed.

The Prince Group has denied such allegations.

A senior official at Tokyo's Metropolitan Police Department confirmed reports published by Asahi Shimbun, another leading Japanese news organisation, of Hu Xiaowei's recent arrest at a luxury hotel in Japan's second largest city, under his Cypriot identity, "Hu Shi".

In the interview with Kyodo, the police official, said Hu had been residing in Japan on a "high skilled professional" visa and was attempting to acquire permanent residency.

Tokyo police suspect Hu of filing a fraudulent change-of-address notification after moving to Japan, and arrested him on the basis of violating laws against using false electronic official records.

Hu was also the owner of a Tokyo-based company called Tokuten Shoji Ltd, according to company documents seen by Kyodo and OCCRP, although authorities could not determine the extent of its actual business scope.

Authorities would continue to investigate any possible violations of Japanese law.

Hu Xiaowei did not immediately respond to requests for comment sent to his personal assistant.

Prince Group also did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

In a previous statement, a Prince Group spokesperson dismissed allegations against the conglomerate and its chairman Chen Zhi, who has been sanctioned and indicted in the US.

"Mr. Chen and his companies were not a criminal syndicate but a collection of legitimate businesses serving millions of people and employing tens of thousands of people across the globe," the spokesperson said by email.

They added: "Chen Zhi and the Prince Group of companies are innocent of the wild and unfounded accusations made by the U.S government, parroted in jurisdictions around the world."

Under the alias of Mr Wu, Hu owns Udney Park playing fields and other London properties worth more than $44 million.

He purchased the fields via a company registered in the British Virgin Islands called Leisure Focus.

However, the company name of Leisure Focus was changed from Wealth Creation International in July 2022, immediately before the land was purchased.

The Udney Park Community Fields Foundation, which wishes to buy the unused fields, has taken a keen interest in the status of the man due to his ownership of "important community playing fields in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames", Jonathan Dunn, the Foundation's Chair, said.

He told Nub News: "Since then, he [Mr Wu] has sought to land-bank these fields presumably for future development and insisted that he would not sell the land unless he was paid at least £3.5m – a ludicrous sum for playing fields.

"Mr Wu had indicated that he would be open to renting out space on these fields and created a company called Udney Park Management Ltd to do so.

"This company was struck off on 6 January 2026 and was dissolved on 13 January 2026."

Mr Wu is listed as the one person with significant control in Udney Park Management Ltd.

The Company House records state that his country of residence is England, and Company House also states that Leisure Focus is the shareholder in this company.

Udney Park Community Fields Foundation previously made an offer to purchase the fields, but this offer was withdrawn in November 2025 due to the controversy surrounding Mr Wu and his links to the Princes Group.

Dunn said that this "threw the Foundation into doubt over the legality of transferring funds to him".

Speaking about Mr Wu's arrest, Dunn told Nub News: "The owner of Udney Park playing fields has been arrested in Japan leaving the 12.5-acre site in limbo

"The Foundation has written to the solicitors who have represented Mr Wu (Edwin Coe and BDB Pitman), as well as the man in charge of Mr Wu's communications (Stuart Thomson of CWE Communications) to ask them how Mr Wu passed their due diligence and came into ownership of this land.

"The same question has been asked of Savills who acted for AHH/ Quantum in selling the land to Mr Wu, when he was the sole bidder. Comments are awaited.

"The bottom line is that these community playing fields are owned by a man with links to an international criminal network, who in the past has used four different identities

"Perhaps the more important question is what Richmond Council and our local MP will do to free up this asset for the playing of sport."