In May 2022, a man in a navy suit stood in a packed Georgian football stadium, accepting an honorary presidency from FC Dinamo Batumi. To the public, he was Thomas Xu, a Cambodian-born tycoon and founder of the Lixin Group, a real estate giant promising a billion-lari investment in the Black Sea city. But behind the applause and the gleaming skyscraper renderings lay a convicted methamphetamine manufacturer on the run.
Xu, originally named Hsu Ming-chin, fled Taiwan in 2014 after being sentenced to 12 years for running a crystal meth lab. A botched cooking attempt in a Kaohsiung apartment, complete with a chemical explosion and a kidnapped associate, led to his conviction. Yet he escaped justice, using forged passports to obtain Cambodian citizenship and a new identity.
His brother, Hsu Ming-chao, built Lixin Group into a major Cambodian developer, cozying up to the political elite, including the family of former Prime Minister Hun Sen. Together, the brothers expanded into Georgia, where Xu posed as a philanthropist, donating to disaster victims and sponsoring local festivals.
But the facade crumbled. Investigators found that Xu’s assets, including a $5.2-million stake in the Halcyon Towers project, were quietly shifted to his brother after journalists began asking questions. The towers, touted as Georgia’s tallest, remain unbuilt, their designs suspiciously similar to a Zaha Hadid project.
A 2025 U.N. report identified Lixin Group as a “major Mekong-based criminal enterprise,” linking it to online gambling and fraud. Xu is also suspected of financing a $364-million meth shipment linked to the Sam Gor syndicate, though extradition hurdles have kept him from facing charges.
Today, Xu’s name has vanished from Georgian registries, but his brother now controls nearly $23 million in local real estate. Transparency watchdogs warn that Batumi risks becoming a haven for opaque foreign investments, where criminals can reinvent themselves as tycoons.