Former Philippine mayor, accused of faking citizenship, sentenced to life in prison for human trafficking at scam centre

Dismissed Bamban town Mayor Alice Guo arrives at a private hangar in the City of Pasay, Philippines, early Sept. 6, 2024, following her deportation from Indonesia. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila, File)

MANILA, Philippines — A Philippine court on Thursday convicted a former mayor, who officials say is a Chinese national, of human trafficking charges for helping establish an illegal online gaming complex in a northern province where hundreds of Chinese and other foreign nationals were forced to conduct scams.

The Pasig city regional trial court in metropolitan Manila sentenced Alice Guo to life in prison with seven other Filipino and Chinese co-accused, and ordered them to pay a fine of two million pesos (US$34,000) each and compensate several trafficking victims, who filed the complaints.

Guo denied all allegations against her and says she is a Filipino citizen.

Vast online scam centres have flourished in Southeast Asia in recent years, especially in the border areas of Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar. The UN has estimated that hundreds of thousands of people have been trapped in virtual slavery by gangs who force them to financially exploit people around the world through false romances, bogus investment pitches and illegal gambling schemes.

In the Philippines, scam operations rapidly built vast compounds with buildings or rented upscale offices in Manila’s financial districts and moved around large numbers of workers by bribing authorities.

Philippine authorities allege that Guo is a Chinese national named Guo Huaping, who faked Filipino citizenship to run for mayor of the town of Bamban in northern Tarlac province, where she ran a sprawling illegal scam compound near the town hall.

“They used the parcels of land and buildings to house the trafficked workers and to force them to work as scammers,” the court said in its decision.

Last year, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. ordered a ban on hundreds of mostly Chinese-run online gaming operations, which proliferated under the administration of previous President Rodrigo Duterte. Marcos accused the gaming operations of crimes including financial scams, human trafficking, torture, kidnapping and murder.

Many have been raided and shut down since then, with tens of thousands of trafficked workers rescued and sent back to their home countries. But more scam centres remain in operation, officials said.

“The conviction of Alice Guo, also known as Guo Hua Ping, is a victory against corruption, human trafficking, cybercrime and many other transnational crimes,” said Sen. Risa Hontiveros. “But it is far from over.”

Hontiveros led televised Senate inquiries last year that exposed underground online scam operations in the Philippines, along with Guo’s alleged criminal involvement.

Philippine security officials and Hontiveros have said the scam centres operated by Guo and other Chinese nationals may have also been used for espionage by China, which has had increasingly fierce territorial conflicts with the Philippines in the South China Sea and has strongly opposed the presence of American forces in the country. The Philippines is the oldest U.S. treaty ally in Asia.

“We will continue to demand accountability from every government agency that failed in their duties, and we will continue to investigate the full extent of Chinese intelligence operations in our country,” Hontiveros said. “And to all others who enabled Alice Guo’s criminal empire: the Philippines is not a playground for exploitation, infiltration and espionage.”

Guo has not been charged with espionage and she denies any connection to spying.

The town of Bamban is located several kilometres from a Philippine air force base, where American forces have been allowed to maintain a rotating presence with their aircraft and weapons under a 2014 defense pact.

Guo was dismissed from her post as mayor last year by a state ombudsman, who cited grave 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 in detention since last year.

Jim Gomez, The Associated Press