The recent case of a fugitive former Filipina mayor with alleged ties to Chinese criminal syndicates has sparked national security concerns in the Philippines amid tensions with China over its maritime territories.
On Aug. 30, Alice Guo, the dismissed mayor of Bamban, north of Manila, was charged in multiple money laundering lawsuits linked to illegal Philippine offshore gaming operators (POGOs), Chinese-run gambling firms facing fraud charges, unlawful detention, and human trafficking.
Guo was allegedly involved in obtaining Philippine citizenship through fraudulent means. The 35-year-old Chinese passport holder fled the Philippines with several accomplices in July, but the Philippine Bureau of Immigration (BI) wasn’t aware of their departure until a month later.
Concerns arose among Philippine lawmakers over transnational criminals from China that may be linked to espionage activities in the country at the behest of the Chinese Communist Party.
Guo’s case occurred when tensions between the Philippines and China reached a historic high. After Filipino President Ferdinand Marcos took office in 2022, he stood up to China’s aggression in the South China Sea, and China retaliated with more attacks on Filipino vessels.
At the joint Senate committee hearing on Aug. 27, Idol Raffy Tulfo, chairman of the Senate Committee on Public Services, questioned how Guo and her family could reside in the Philippines with fraudulent documents and leave the country undetected.
Related Stories
“How many more Alice Guos are there in our country today, perhaps holding a low-profile position in our government and private institutions, low profile positions but sensitive and important positions,” Tulfo asked.
“This is really a serious national security issue (that) may be part of a sleeper cell from an enemy country.”
Escape Route
At a Philippine Senate hearing on Aug. 27, immigration commissioner Norman Tansingco said that he was notified about Guo’s illegal departure from the Philippines on Aug. 15.
Tansingco said that the Indonesian Immigration Department had tracked Guo in Jakarta, with an extradition request filed with the Indonesian authorities and the two sides in close cooperation.
Shiela Guo, Alice Guo’s purported sister, and Cassandra Li Ong were intercepted in Indonesia on Aug. 22 and taken back by the Philippine authorities as part of an investigation. The Philippines’ National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) identified Shiela Guo as holding a Chinese passport under the name Zhang Mier.
At the Senate hearing, Shiela Guo admitted that she fled the Philippines by boat with Alice Guo and her brother, Wesley Guo, and arrived in Malaysia with them in early July. She said Alice Guo then left them and that she didn’t know where she went next.
The BI found that Alice Guo’s escape route passed through Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia.
Investigators said they believe that Guo may seek to enter Southeast Asia’s “Golden Triangle” region to evade capture. The Golden Triangle is home to the Chinese-operated telecoms fraud industry, where the Guo family has a gaming-related business in Cambodia, said Winston John Casio, a spokesman for the Philippine Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission (PAOCC).
The Philippine government has since approached the International Police Organization (Interpol) to issue a blue notice for the capture of Guo.
Criminal Charges
The NBI, the Anti-Money Laundering Council, and the PAOCC have jointly filed money laundering charges against Guo and her accomplices involving about 7 billion Philippine pesos ($124 million) in assets allegedly from the scam farm operations.
Along with Guo, the other 35 indicted persons include Cassandra Li Ong, Shiela Guo, and some officials of QSeed Genetics, Zun Yuan Technology Inc., Hongshen Gaming Technology Inc., QJJ Farms, and Baofu Land Development Inc.—all POGO-related hubs where Guo had been the incorporator or president while she was the Bamban mayor.
Employees of Solaire Manila Resorts and casino simulate a roulette game during media day inside the casino in Manila on March 14, 2013. TED ALJIBE/AFP via Getty Images
Cassandra Li Ong is a shareholder and a representative of Lucky South 99 Outsourcing Inc., an illegal online gaming company based in Porac, a province of Pampanga in the northern Philippines. According to the Philippine Department of Justice, the activities of the two women revealed a link between POGOs in Porac and Bamban.
Guo’s investment partners in Baofu Park, Lin Baoying and Zhang Ruijin, were also among the protagonists in a Singapore money laundering case. Convicted and sentenced by a Singaporean court this year, they were released from prison on June 15 and deported to Cambodia, where they are permanently barred from entering Singapore, according to Singapore-based The Strait Times.
Justice Undersecretary Hermogenes Andres told the Philippines News Agency that the government would send a “red notice” to Interpol for Guo once the charges are filed in court.
Criminals involved in illegal gambling operations often use what is known as “pig-butchering” scams to hook victims with investment or job opportunities and then rip them off or coerce them into slave labor.
There is growing evidence that Chinese pig butchering scams reach beyond Asia. A BBC investigation found in late 2021 that nearly 100 Chinese came from the Philippines to the Isle of Man, England, to run internet scams.
