The International Crackdown on Habanos: Swedish Distributor Faces Independent Turmoil

2 juni 2026

Cigarrvärlden was able to reveal last week that the Swedish Habanos importer Elite Trading Scandinavia AB plans to enter liquidation, according to a company representative. This comes alongside recent media reports that assets within Habanos and affiliated companies—currently owned by the U.S.-indicted businessman Chen Zhi—are slated for sale to new owners. However, a deeper review suggests that the problems plaguing Elite Trading Scandinavia AB are, at least partially, independent of these international headwinds.

Published: 2026-06-02 20:45 Journalist: Jakob Bergman. Jakob also writes for Bulletin and is its publisher. He has previously written for nyheter idag and was its publisher as well.

We use AI and Google Translate for translations, with some review to enhance readability. Pardon the Spanglish.

Disclaimer: Cigarrvärlden is owned and operated by Cigarrklubben CK Sverige AB, which also operates a cigar club and has a foot in both camps. To put it mildly. Divison and separation of operations and the editorial is explained under the section "Conflicts of Interest (in Swedish)". Cigarrvärlden operates under a ‘certificate of no legal impediment to publication conferring constitutional protection’ (utgivningsbevis). With this certificate, Cigarrvärlden enjoys a special legal status in Swedish law under the freedom of expression act.

Elite Trading Scandinavia AB has had a rocky ride in recent years. Its long-standing CEO resigned, its tobacco permit was revoked, and its auditor resigned. Furthermore, the company had been orchestrating a highly unusual restructuring plan, wherein distribution rights would be transferred to The Premium Company Nordic AB—a new venture launched by the former CEO.

According to documents submitted to the Swedish Companies Registration Office (Bolagsverket) at the end of April, Elite Trading Scandinavia AB was unable to find a replacement auditor after PwC withdrew in December. PwC’s departure reportedly followed definitive confirmation that Chen Zhi and his transnational criminal organization, the Prince Group, held an ownership stake. However, after the Swedish Companies Registration Office intervened and surveyed the market after a request by Elite Trading Scandinavia AB, an independent auditor stepped forward to accept the assignment, temporarily removing the immediate threat of compulsory liquidation.

A Global Prosecution with Far-Reaching Side Effects

When the U.S. Department of Justice indicted Chinese businessman Chen Zhi—the mastermind behind Cambodia's Prince Group—on October 14 last year for widespread fraud, money laundering, and human trafficking, it set off a massive geopolitical domino effect. Authorities in several countries targeted the Prince Group, seizing assets in the UK, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore. Chen Zhi was arrested in Cambodia on January 6 and subsequently extradited to China, prompting Cambodia's central bank to place Prince Bank under liquidation. Throughout the spring, Cambodian authorities also announced that additional Prince Group assets could be confiscated if Chen Zhi is convicted.

However, the fate of Chen Zhi’s stake in Habanos has remained a major question mark. Through a complex web of holding companies, Chen Zhi owns 57.1% of the Spanish-based Allied Cigar Corporation. Allied Cigar Corporation, via Tabacalera SLU and ITI Cigars SLU, owns half of the Spanish firm Altabana SL, which controls local international distributors like Elite Trading Scandinavia AB. The remaining 50% of Altabana SL is owned by the Cuban state.

The identity of the owner behind the remaining 42.9% of Allied Cigar Corporation has long been shrouded in mystery. Reports from the Spanish outlet El Confidencial claim this stake is held by the Renovaire Group Holding RSC - a fund linked to the royal houses of the United Arab Emirates —via Horizon Glory Global Limited and Digital Harvest Limited. Cigarrvärlden has been unable to independently verify this information, the same El Confidencial source claims that Chen Zhi’s majority share will soon be sold, likely to this Emirati minority owner. However, there is ample reason to remain skeptical.

Many of Chen Zhi’s holdings are registered in the British Virgin Islands (BVI). As a British Overseas Territory, the BVI is directly bound by sanctions imposed by the UK and the US. In early January, the BVI Attorney General took the highly unusual step of placing 30 companies identified by U.S. authorities as part of Chen Zhi’s group of companies into provisional liquidation.

This interim liquidation placed three liquidators from the consulting firm Interpath Advisory in control of the companies to audit and secure their assets. Crucially, the liquidators are explicitly prohibited from selling off any assets. This mandate was subsequently approved by the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court.

A major hurdle for the liquidators, however, was their inability to review assets or conduct investigative measures within the United States. On April 8, they petitioned a U.S. court for jurisdiction. To litigate the case, the liquidators retained the high-profile multinational law firm Sullivan & Cromwell. However, the firm's initial court submission was heavily botched because it had been drafted using an AI tool. Forced to swallow their pride, the lawyers corrected the error and filed a proper submission. On April 23, Judge Martin Glenn granted the liquidators temporary permission to operate in the U.S., valid until a follow-up court hearing in June.

The liquidators' counterparts have opposed this decision. A week ago a request was to annul the order was submitted to the court by Cosimo Borrelli, a prominent restructuring expert who claims to have been appointed to a leadership position within Prince Global Holding and several other Chen Zhi-linked entities.

Habanos Distributors Receive a Temporary Reprieve

Throughout the winter, Spain's Tabacalera SLU (57.1% owned by Chen Zhi) faced severe operational challenges. Due to international sanctions, multiple banks froze Tabacalera's accounts and denied its loan requests. In February, the company filed for pre-concurso (pre-bankruptcy status), a legal mechanism that protects existing assets and obligations. This allowed the company to maintain daily operations while actively attempting to sever ties with Chen Zhi to escape the sanctions net.

The strategy paid off in early May, when Tabacalera was was granted formal exemptions from sanctions by both the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and the UK’s Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI).

How this will affect Habanos distributors further down the chain remains to be seen. In March, L’amateur de cigare reported that regional distributors Laguito 1492 (serving the Benelux region) and Fifth Avenue (serving Germany, Austria, and Poland) have seen their bank accounts closed. In the UK, the distribution of Hunter & Frankau, which has seen imports decline sharply, L’amateur de cigar writes.

The Unclear Fate of the Record Cryptocurrency Seizure

Another massive piece of the puzzle is the fate of 127,271 Bitcoin seized by U.S. authorities, which they allege was controlled by Chen Zhi. The background of this seizure is complex.

According to the U.S. indictment, Chen Zhi operated a crypto-mining enterprise called Lubian. By funding this business with illicit proceeds, he effectively laundered dirty money into legitimate cryptocurrency. This newly minted Bitcoin was then mixed with stolen cryptocurrency to obfuscate the paper trail. Operating facilities in China and Iran, Lubian briefly grew to become the sixth-largest Bitcoin producer in the world before shutting down entirely in February 2021. However, just prior to its closure, in late December 2020, the company suffered a massive exploit, resulting in the theft of the exact Bitcoin cache now held by U.S. authorities.

Evidence suggests that a hacker exploited a vulnerability in a pseudorandom number generator used to create the wallet's private keys. This weakness allowed the hacker to execute a successful brute-force attack, rapidly testing key combinations until accessing the wallet. The stolen cryptocurrency sat dormant in an anonymous wallet until mid-2024, when it was transferred into wallets controlled by U.S. law enforcement. A report by China's National Computer Virus Emergency Response Center (CVERC) alleged that this was a state-sponsored hacking operation, though the precise mechanics of the transfer remain cloaked in secrecy.

The fate of the seized cryptocurrency so far is still a cliffhanger and is the subject of a legal process in the U.S. On the one hand, we have the U.S. Department of Justice who want to see the money forfeited and thus accrue to the state, but what should happen next is not certain. Many victims of fraud hope to be able to get back some of what was stolen from them, but others believe the state wants to keep the money to create the strategic bitcoin reserve proposed by Donald Trump. Another factor is the fact that Lubian had facilities in Iran, which is why even victims of Iranian terrorism consider themselves entitled to part of the money.

Chen Zhi's lawyers, for their part, believe that the forfeiture is unlawful and the funds should be returned Their core defense is that the U.S. government has failed to prove the seized assets are direct proceeds of a crime, nor have they linked them to a specific offense. Furthermore, they note that the specific fraud cases cited in the initial seizure request occurred after December 2020—the date the funds originally vanished from Lubian's wallets. The defense also points out that the government's failure to clarify exactly how it acquired the Bitcoin reflects poorly on the prosecution's case, a situation compounded by the fact that several photographic pieces of evidence presented by the state did not actually originate from the Prince Group's operations

Footnote: Cigarrvärlden has sought representatives of Elite Trading Scandinavia AB to no avail.

Journalist: Jakob Bergman

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