manila, philippines
AP
—
A Philippine court on Thursday convicted a former mayor, whom authorities say is Chinese, on human trafficking charges for helping set up an illegal online gaming facility in a northern province where hundreds of Chinese nationals and other foreigners were forced to commit fraud.
The Pasig City District Trial Court in Metro Manila sentenced Alice Guo, along with seven other Filipino and Chinese co-accused, to life imprisonment, and ordered each to pay a fine of 2 million pesos ($34,000) and restitution to several trafficking victims who filed complaints.
Guo denied all charges against her and said she was a Filipino citizen.
In recent years, large-scale online fraud centers have flourished in Southeast Asia, particularly in the border areas of Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar. The United Nations estimates that hundreds of thousands of people are held in virtual slavery by gangs that force economic exploitation of people around the world through fake love affairs, false investment offers and illegal gambling schemes.
In the Philippines, fraudsters quickly built vast expanses of rented buildings and high-end offices in Manila’s financial district, bribed authorities and relocated large numbers of workers.
Philippine authorities allege that Guo, a Chinese national named Guo Huaping, lied about his Filipino nationality to run for mayor in Bambang town in northern Tarlac province and ran an illegal fraud facility near City Hall.
“They used plots of land and buildings to house trafficked workers and force them to work as fraudsters,” the court said in its judgment.
Last year, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. ordered a ban on hundreds of online gaming operations, mostly run by China, which had proliferated under former President Rodrigo Duterte’s administration. Mr. Marcos accused gaming operators of crimes including financial fraud, human trafficking, torture, kidnapping and murder.
Since then, many facilities have been raided and shut down, and tens of thousands of trafficked workers have been rescued and repatriated to their home countries. However, officials say more fraud centers are still operating.
“The conviction of Alice Guo, also known as Guo Huaping, is a victory against corruption, human trafficking, cybercrime and many other transnational crimes,” said Sen. Lisa Hontiveros. “But we’re not done yet.”
Last year, Mr. Hontiveros led a televised Senate investigation that exposed underground online fraud operations in the Philippines and Mr. Guo’s alleged criminal involvement.
Philippine security officials and Mr. Hontiveros said the fraud center run by Mr. Guo and other Chinese nationals may also have been used for espionage by China. China has escalated its territorial dispute with the Philippines in the South China Sea and strongly opposes the presence of US troops in the country. The Philippines is the oldest treaty ally of the United States in Asia.
“We will continue to hold accountable all government agencies that failed in their duties, and we will continue to investigate the full scope of Chinese intelligence operations in our country,” Hontiveros said. “And to everyone else who made Alice Guo’s criminal empire possible: The Philippines is not a place for exploitation, infiltration, or espionage.”
Mr. Guo has not been charged with spying and has denied any ties to spying.
The town of Bambang is located several kilometers from a Philippine air force base, where U.S. forces are allowed to maintain a rotating presence of aircraft and weapons under a 2014 defense agreement.
Guo was removed from his post as mayor last year by the state ombudsman for gross misconduct. She fled the Philippines in July 2024 but was tracked down in Indonesia, where she was arrested and deported to the Philippines. She has been detained since last year.
