How a Scam and Chinese Spy Scandal Rocked the Philippines

- At around 11:30 in the evening, they were all calling me, "Proceed to Bamban."

I said, "What's happening?" "People are escaping."

When we arrived there, I just informed my personnel to just draw their guns and make sure that nobody get out of the compound.

- POGO stands for Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators.

They offer gambling services online to people overseas, particularly in China.

Many scam centers used POGOs as a front for human trafficking and money laundering.

But the layers of lies and deceit in this case is really shocking.

- Underground tunnels connecting multimillion-peso villas were also found in the compound.

- I knew how huge the operation was.

I just didn't realize that it was going to be the mayor who was going to be the biggest catch.

I just saw it as a small town mayor, probably on the take from POGO bosses, but I didn't realize that it was bigger than what I initially thought.

The first ever lady mayor of the municipality of Bamban.

Mayor Alice Leal Guo.

- We actually started investigating the phenomenon of POGOs in 2019.

Ours was the first investigation on the social problems and abuses surrounding offshore gaming enterprises in the Philippines.

So fast forward to 2022, we got a phone call by a woman.

She told us that she and a number of Filipinos were forced to operate love scams in Myanmar.

That was just the start because it became clear to us that these operations were across the region.

It was a pattern.

It was a self-contained, very modern group of buildings in the middle of nowhere.

And then there would be a building that would be used as dormitory and another building that would be their workplace.

It would have karaoke and a number of small food outlets.

And then while we were investigating that, it came to our attention that the POGOs here were also being used as scam compounds.

- I have been covering banking and financial crime for 10 years.

In recent years, we are seeing more and more cases linked to scam compounds.

There were many types of scams. Some of the scammers were told to deceive women pretending that they love that person and try to get as much money from the person.

There's also official impersonator scam, where scammers pretend to be a government official to trick victims for money.

It is all connected where Singapore and many rich countries, people are scammed and the scammers would use people from emerging countries to work.

Unfortunately people who work at scam centers are victims themselves.

Many have been tricked.

- You see a good number of Filipinos and foreign nationals getting into POGOs not knowing that they are being recruited to become scammers.

And that's the most benign form of human trafficking associated to POGOs, because the worst are the violent types.

You've seen tortures, killings, murders.

Name it.

Baofu compound is basically the largest Philippine offshore gaming operation outside of Metro Manila.

Baofu is the corporation that controls the land.

We received a report from the intelligence component to the armed forces.

They informed us of tortures being conducted inside this particular location inside Bamban.

I was trying to find a legal avenue to be able to get into the compound.

Then a Vietnamese national was able to escape from Bamban.

- He was looking for a chance to escape, but then a security guard noticed that he was looking around and the guard pointed a gun at him.

At that point, he found an opening and he jumped and landed on an adjacent farm.

The farm owner took shelter of him.

Later the Vietnamese victim was taken to the local police station to sign a statement that he wouldn't complain against the company, which he refused.

- That was purely hogwash.

So they were trying to cover up the crimes happening inside.

I went to Bamban to secure that Vietnamese national.

They tried to take him from me.

Fortunately enough, I had enough officers to be able to bring him to Manila.

I got a call from the police attaché of Malaysia.

He informed me of Dylan who was being held against his will inside Bamban.

So now I have two embassies who are seeking my assistance.

I was able to apply for a search warrant.

I got the warrant at 5:20 p.m. on March 12th.

So we ran into Bamban immediately after that.

Unfortunately, the operating unit, the Philippine National Police were not there yet.

And around 8, 8:30 in the evening, they told me they were one or two hours away.

To be honest, at that time I felt very nervous already because any hour or two of delay will probably compromise the operation and indeed I was correct.

Chances are someone tipped them off.

When we arrived there, people were moving out.

We were less than 15.

So I just informed my personnel to just draw their guns and make sure that nobody got out of the compound.

While our group was on this side of the fence.

The big bosses, their families were here. So they were here.

We were here. A wall separated us.

You could only imagine the tension.

The big boss was seated here, so he walked all the way here.

He viewed the CCTV of what was happening outside while we were grouping outside for the operation.

They escaped.

The big boss never to be seen again.

This was the brain center of all the operations.

Everything was conjured here.

Downstairs you see an underground tunnel.

They had very expensive wine here and I guess Chinese herbal teas, concoctions of different sorts.

And this would lead to the underground tunnel.

That's the door to the underground tunnel.

They had some sort of a panic room.

- The scam center at Bamban was so big.

It covered several hectares of farmland.

The police arrested many criminals, but some of the masterminds escaped.

The investigation also took a surprising turn.

- The electric provider of the area personnel came in, gave to the guard an electric bill.

The bill is in the name of Mayor Alice Guo.

I had to ask, "Why is the name in the name of the mayor?"

"Sir, it's been like that for so many years now."

I said, "Ding."

It opened a Pandora's box.

- As the investigations unfolded, more and more questions became evident about her background.

- The senate hearing that was called to investigate the specific case of Bamban, Tarlac, was in May 2024.

And then Mayor Alice Guo was invited to the hearing as a resource person.

A lot of times of the hearings, I sit right at the back of Senator Hontiveros and I assist her.

- As the senate hearing went on, more evidence piled up about how close Alice Guo was to the scam compound.

Apart from purchasing the farmland that became the scam compound building, she also helped incorporate the company.

And it was a shock that many of the co-founders were Chinese.

- That day of the hearing, I was very surprised to get a phone call from somebody who worked in intelligence services in the Philippines.

This person said, "We don't think she's Filipino."

And at the time I was aghast and I couldn't believe it.

How can somebody have the chutzpah to run for mayor and make a declaration of citizenship if she lied about it?

- We were so incredulous.

I think when I say we, I mean the entire country watching it because it's not possible to forget these basic questions of your childhood and your early life.

- People just realized that they just got to know her from her high school days.

But the past before high school, it was blank.

- Our suspicions were up given the way that she answered the questions and that convinced us to dig further.

She also presented a birth certificate identifying her father as Filipino, her mother as Filipino, having a date of marriage.

So to our great surprise, we found out that not only were her parents never married, but there is also no record of them.

- Mayor Guo, why were you also inconsistent about your father?

- Who is your mother?

- The biggest question many Filipinos had at the time was it really her, so young, so innocent-looking, could be capable of hiding so many crime behind her facade.

- And then evidence of her wealth started coming in about her luxury cars, her jewelry, even the clothes that she wore came into scrutiny.

We wanted to dig deeper into how she was able to amass so much wealth.

So we requested the incorporation documents of Alice Guo's various companies.

In one of those companies, Baofu, listed incorporators are the names Zhang Ruijin and Lin Baoying.

And to our great surprise, when we Googled the names, we found out about the ongoing case in Singapore about them, and that it was described as the largest money laundering case in Singapore.

- All the criminals convicted for that case.

They were all hailed from Fujian, China.

Just like Alice Guo.

- Investigators found many of Alice Guo's financial transactions very unusual.

More than $200 million flowed to bank accounts associated with her.

We learned that a lot of the money went to China.

- Then suddenly the most absolute confirmation came.

- The claim of Bamban Tarlac mayor Alice Guo that she's a Filipino shattered after the National Bureau of Investigation confirmed that her fingerprint is the same as Chinese National Guo Huaping.

Based on government records, Guo Huaping is a Chinese national who entered the Philippines on January 12th, 2003 when she was 13 years old.

- Mayor Alice Guo was indeed a Chinese little girl who entered the Philippines.

So her entire identity and history was completely fabricated.

Senator Risa wanted to invite her to a third hearing, but she did not attend.

And then she was no longer available in Bamban.

- Dismissed Bamban mayor Alice Guo otherwise known as Chinese national Guo Huaping left the Philippines in July.

- Who allowed this travesty to happen?

- Complete outrage and disbelief that she had managed to escape, that she had managed to go past our borders.

President Marcos ordering a manhunt for her.

- After weeks of search, dismissed Bamban Tarlac mayor Alice Guo arrested in Indonesia.

- Let this serve as a warning to those who attempt to evade justice.

The arm of the law is long and it will reach you.

- After she was sent back to the Philippines, she was charged with human trafficking and money laundering.

She denied everything.

- Just one last time on this very simple fundamental question.

- While it was at its most popular, this documentary came out where the testimony of one She Zhijiang was featured.

- She Zhijiang was a businessman and he allegedly ran a very big scam compound at the border of Myanmar and Thailand.

He was arrested in Bangkok at the request of the Chinese government who also wants him deported back to China.

- She Zhijiang made the claim that he was in communication with Guo Huaping and that like him she was planted in the Philippines by the Chinese government to basically be their agent to gather intelligence.

- So far Alice Guo has denied allegations that she's a Chinese spy, But a Filipino intelligence agency called her "an agent of influence."

And the Philippine military chief accused China of using POGO as a way to infiltrate the Philippine society.

But so far, no one can find conclusive evidence that Alice Guo is a Chinese spy.

- This is not over yet.

Alice Guo is not it all.

If we continue going through the documents, chances are we'll find some bigger fish to fry.

- The grave abuse and disrespect to our system of laws must stop.

Effective today, all POGOs are banned.

- Alice Guo was the Pandora's box that needed to happen for us to be able to totally ban POGOs.

I'm not saying they're not in the Philippines anymore because they are still here.

- Alice Guo is emblematic of a larger problem within the region.

What is the involvement of immigration?

What is the involvement of law enforcement?

What is the involvement of even the highest officers of government?

And I think those are hard questions that the region has to ask.