Fugitive ‘Chinese spy mayor’ wanted by Philippines arrested in Indonesia – Firstpost

A former Philippine mayor suspected of being a Chinese spy has been arrested after months on the run.

Alice Guo is the disgraced former mayor of Bamban City in the Philippines. She is accused of spying for China under a false identity and being part of a criminal network involving international fraud, human trafficking and money laundering.

Guo was arrested on Tuesday in Indonesia, where she had fled after the investigation into her intensified.

Guo’s case came to light at a time when relations between China and the Philippines were already quite sour, amid ongoing Chinese aggression in the South China Sea. The report of Chinese spies’ penetration of the Philippine government will further inflame relations and negatively affect attitudes toward China. Guo’s case has already attracted national attention in the country.

What is the case against Alice Guo?

Guo was elected mayor of Bamban on the basis of an image of a young and enthusiastic official, but she quickly fell for favor.

The decline began when the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission (PAOCC) received information about two workers from Malaysia and Vietnam being held against their will in a building in Bamban, CNN reported.

The building is said to be a Philippine Offshore Gaming Operation (POGO), which offers gambling to Chinese nationals, as gambling is illegal in China. The report said that authorities discovered that more than 800 people from the Philippines, China, Vietnam, etc. were being held against their will.

According to the report, authorities said they found “love scam” scripts, firearms and cellphones used in the scam.

According to the report, the center was running an international scam, in which people held against their will were forced to pose as lovers, trying to trick people into sending money by posing as young women online.

The Philippine Senate has launched an investigation into the matter, which also included investigating the role of Mayor Guo as the center is located near her office, the BBC reported.

During the investigation, as pressure mounted on Guo to explain how her wealth ballooned into the millions within two years of becoming mayor, she disappeared from public view. After her arrest in Indonesia, authorities said she escaped on several boats, crossing Malaysia and Singapore on her way to Indonesia, the BBC reported.

Alice Guo identified as Chinese citizen

After Guo ignored the Senate’s summons, the Senate issued a warrant for her arrest. But she had already disappeared by then.

As the investigation progressed, authorities discovered that Guo was actually a Chinese citizen and that her real name was not Alice Guo.

According to CNN, immigration records showed that Guo’s real name was “Guo Hua Ping” and that her fingerprints in government documents matched those of a Chinese citizen with the same name.

The investigation also found that the scam center targeting Chinese nationals was run by Guo in collaboration with a Chinese national, bolstering the claim that she was a Chinese spy.

According to CNN, the Senate investigation found that an entity, Baofu Land Development, was set up at the address of the scam center in 2019. The three owners of the entity were Guo and two other Chinese nationals.