China spy rumors swirl as Philippines fugitive mayor arrested

(CNN) — A disgraced mayor wanted in the Philippines for alleged links to Chinese criminal networks has been arrested in Indonesia after several weeks on the run, Philippines officials announced Wednesday, as they vowed to prosecute cases against her.

Alice Leal Guo, identified as Chinese national Guo Hua Ping by Philippine immigration authorities, fled the country in July as speculation swirled over her true identity after raids exposed a huge scam center staffed by hundreds of people in her home town.

The scandal captivated the country for months as lawmakers dug deeper into the allegations against Guo, through a senate inquiry that heard claims of illegal gambling activities, money laundering, human trafficking and fraud.

As pressure grew on Guo, 34, to explain how she amassed millions in assets as a first-time politician within two years of being elected to public office, she vanished, fleeing the country allegedly via a covert network of vans and small boats.

From the Philippines, authorities believe she crossed the sea to Malaysia, then Singapore and Indonesia, where local police caught up with her in the early hours of Wednesday.

Dressed in a baby pink pajama set and a white jacket, Guo was seen being led down a staircase by Indonesian authorities in Jakarta’s Tangerang City in a video released by Philippine authorities.

In a video statement posted to Facebook, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. commended law enforcement officials for Guo’s arrest.

“Let this serve as a warning to those who attempt to evade justice. Such is an exercise in futility. The arm of the law is long, and it will reach you,” he said.

Guo’s legal team wrote in a statement sent to CNN Thursday that the arrest was a “welcome development” as she would now have the opportunity to “answer the allegations and issues thrown against her.”

“We trust that Alice L. Guo will demonstrate her courage and resilience in the face of adversity,” the David Buenaventura and Ang Law Office said.

Fall from grace

With long black hair and a beaming smile, the bespectacled candidate running for mayor of Bamban, a small town in Tarlac province about 60 miles north of Manila, appeared in 2022 campaign material posted to YouTube with the description: “Get to know the real Alice Guo.”

Dressed in a pink polo shirt and jeans, she’s seen waving to her supporters, who are also dressed in pink, her signature color. The campaign worked, and Guo was elected.

Her provincial life seemed ordinary. On her YouTube videos, she’s seen tending her chickens and having deep fried dried fish for breakfast, like a typical Filipino.

However, Guo’s image as an enthusiastic, young public servant was called into question earlier this year when the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission (PAOCC) received separate tip-offs from two workers from Malaysia and Vietnam.

They had asked for help to be sent back to their home countries after claiming to have been held against their will in a building in Bamban, home to just 78,000 people.

The building was suspected to be a Philippine Offshore Gaming Operation (POGO), which caters to punters based in China, where gambling is illegal. Until July, POGOs were popular places of employment for tens of thousands of foreign workers.

However, when authorities raided the Bamban complex in March, they found more than 800 Filipinos, Chinese, Vietnamese and other nationals, who claimed to have been working there against their will.

The government-run Philippine News Agency reported police found “love scam” scripts, firearms and mobile phones allegedly used for scam transactions.

The rescued workers were allegedly made to pose as lovers to lure people to send money, in what’s commonly known as “pig-butchering” – a type of confidence fraud in which victims are lured by scammers often impersonating young women on the internet.

To get to the bottom of what was happening in Bamban, the Philippine senate ordered an inquiry into Guo on May 7 headed by Senator Risa Hontiveros.

Guo failed to show up for at least three of the hearings, citing death threats and poor mental health, according to a statement on Facebook before her official account was taken down.

While she was absent from the hearings, raids on casino hubs continued and public criticism intensified over POGOs, which have spread across the country.

Subsequent probes into the complexin Bamban also uncovered alleged links between the mayor and the shady underworld of gambling centers, with some suspected of being vehicles to launder money.

President Marcos Jr. expressed his growing concern about the explosion of offshore casinos in an address to the nation on July 22. Amid a standing ovation from lawmakers, he ordered a total ban with immediate effect.

“Disguising as legitimate entities, their operations have ventured into illicit areas furthest from gaming, such as financial scamming, money laundering, prostitution, human trafficking, kidnapping, brutal torture — even murder,” Marcos said. “The grave abuse and disrespect to our system of laws must stop.”

Suspected ties with China

Against this heightened scrutiny, the senate inquiry into Guo’s possible links to Chinese criminals, which began in May, has been compulsive viewing for Filipinos hooked on the intrigue.

Many parts of Guo’s life story did not add up, lawmakers said during the publicly broadcasted sessions that lasted for hours, filled with the dizzying back and forth of questions aimed at Guo and her suspected accomplices.

During her testimony, Guo claimed she grew up on a livestock farm in the town of Bamban, and was the love child of a Filipino maid and Chinese man.

Guo speaks Tagalog fluently, but she does not speak the regional language, Kapampangan, which is typically spoken in the town. She said she was homeschooled by a woman called “Teacher Rubilyn” and claimed she did not have any childhood friends who would vouch for her.

Suspicion that she was working as an “asset” for Beijing grew among lawmakers, as they cited her evasive answers to questions about her Chinese parentage. Her alleged business ventures with foreigners who have criminal records also appeared to raise doubts.

Speculation intensified when the senate probe revealed that her real name was “Guo Hua Ping” based on immigration records from 2005. Later, the National Bureau of Investigation found that her fingerprints matched a Chinese national of the same name.

The Philippine senate investigation presented documents showing Guo had incorporated Baofu Land Development in 2019 with supposed business partners Zhang Ruijin and Lin Baoying. It was registered to the same sprawling complex in Bamban where the workers were rescued by authorities.

Her suspected Chinese business partners Zhang and Lin are both serving prison time in Singaporean for fraudulently using forged documents to launder millions of dollars.

Armed with mounting evidence, Philippine law enforcement agencies, including the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC), jointly filed multiple counts of money laundering against Guo and 35 others before the Department of Justice, for allegedly laundering over $1.8 million (100 million Philipine pesos) in proceeds from criminal activities.

The AMLC also filed to forfeit assets valued over 6 billion Philippine pesos ($106 million) from Guo and her associates.

Among those charged include Guo, her alleged sister, Shiela, and a business partner named Cassandra Li Ong for alleged scam farm operations undera number of companies: QSeed Genetics, Zun Yuan Technology Inc, Hongshen Gaming Technology Inc, QJJ Farms and Baofu Land Development Inc.

But by the time the charges were filed on August 30, Guo was already on the run.

President Marcos Jr. said Guo would be entitled to standard legal rights but stressed the Philippines would waste no time in seeking justice and vowed to track down those who had helped her to flee.

“We will not allow this to prolong the resolution of the case whose outcome will be a victory for the Filipino people,” he said.

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CNN’s Andee Capellan contributed to this report.