▲Alice Guo(左一)与选民互动 图/YouTube账号Alice Leal Guo
A series of evidence outlines a history of cross-border crime that spans more than two decades.
A businessman who has failed in business immigrates with his family to the Philippines in an attempt to regroup. The family's eldest daughter later became the mayor of a county-level city in the Philippines under the false identity of Alice Guo, as well as a series of local black umbrellas and white gloves.
On the surface, Alice Guo is a beautiful and people-friendly mayor, a girl who is a fan of Barbie and dolls. Under her cover, a series of vicious crimes such as kidnapping, fraud, and illegal imprisonment have been staged in the black industry park, and the victims are mainly Chinese citizens, but also citizens of Viet Nam, Malaysia, Indonesia, Japan and other countries.
This series of events was also accompanied by the 2024 Philippine official sweep of the black industry park associated with Alice Guo and the holding of a hearing on Alice Guo's identity, which attracted the attention of public opinion in the Philippines and further prompted the Philippine authorities to completely ban the legal existence of offshore gambling business on July 22, 2024, which is a high-risk black industry area.
A spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in the Philippines said on July 25 that the decision conforms to public opinion and is in the common interests of the two peoples, and that China is willing to continue to strengthen law enforcement cooperation with the Philippines.
On July 26, the Supreme People's Court, the Supreme People's Procuratorate and the Ministry of Public Security jointly issued the Opinions on Several Issues Concerning the Application of Law in the Handling of Criminal Cases such as Cross-border Telecommunications Network Fraud, which clearly stipulates that the provision of venues for cross-border telecommunication fraud in the name of "industrial parks" should be designated as criminal groups.
Based on the traces of the Guo family's activities and dozens of Philippine materials obtained exclusively, the reporter of "Southern People Weekly" gradually sketched out the outline of this incident.
This article was first published in Southern People Weekly
Text / Southern People Weekly reporter Yang Nan
Guo Yuxiang, intern reporter of Southern People Weekly
Editor / Li Tuimiao [email protected]
A raid by Philippine officials on the black industry park
On February 25, 2024, in a park called Baofu in the small Philippine city of Bamban, Viet Nam Danny waited for an opportunity to escape. He jumped out of the window of his apartment building, climbed over the western wall, and escaped eight security guards between the mud, the woods and the riverbed.
He couldn't get far and had to hide on a nearby farm. The security guards threatened the farmer to hand over Danny, but the farmer, a veteran of the United States Air Force, had a tough personality and insisted on saving Danny and reported the case to the local police.
▲ An architectural drawing called "Meditation Pavilion" in Baofu Park/hearing materials
The police sent someone to arrive, but demanded that Danny sign a statement waiving the charges against Zunyuan in the Baofu campus: he was not harmed, and he left voluntarily. When Danny complied, he soon received a low-cost airline ticket, and he threatened to leave the Philippines within three days.
Zunyuan Technology is a POGO, or Philippine Offshore Gaming Operator. In layman's terms, POGO is an online network gambling provided by Philippine operators that has been legal in the past, but only allows customers outside the Philippines to participate.
In the 20 years of vigorous development in the Philippines, POGO has brought a lot of revenue to the Philippine government, and also brought many crimes such as murder, human trafficking, kidnapping for ransom, serious illegal detention, abuse, drug trafficking and other crimes to the Philippines and neighboring countries.
The farmer's pastor friend reported the matter to the President's Anti-Organized Crime Commission (PAOCC). On the day the ticket was about to expire, the PAOCC people came to the farm and took Danny and placed him in a safe house in the capital, Manila.
Danny's escape may have encouraged the others who were trapped. A few days later, Dylan, a Malaysian, contacted the Malaysia embassy in the Philippines using a POGO phone number and attached a photo of the bruises on his face. The Malaysia Embassy turned to the PAOCC for help on the grounds that its citizens had been unlawfully detained. The PAOCC applied for a search warrant on this ground and raided the Baofu campus on March 13.
Located next to Banban City Hall, Baofu Campus is the largest and most modern building complex in the region. The entrance is almost the width of the park, with bungalows and four- to six-storey buildings at the back, with supermarkets and restaurants, as well as 14 villas and a lap pool.
The villas are decorated in a Chinese style: round marble dining tables, 10 solid wood tea tables, root carvings fill one wall, and calligraphy and Spring Festival couplets with the word "home" written on them can be seen everywhere. According to the PAOCC report, three of the villas are connected by underground tunnels, and under a villa worth 40 million pesos (about 5 million yuan), there is a wine cellar worth millions of pesos.
▲ The building of the Baofu Park has a couplet/hearing material on the door
According to Dylan's testimony, he was invited by a friend to celebrate the Spring Festival. However, his friend left him alone, and then a man who seemed to be in charge appeared, took away his mobile phone, and said that he had owed POGO 300,000 pesos (about 37,000 yuan) and had to work at POGO for half a year. "I'm sold, and 300,000 pesos is the selling price," he thought.
Dylan tried to run out, but the security guard punched him twice and he fainted.
On the day of the PAOCC raid, there were 678 staff members in the Park, including 383 Filipinos, 218 Chinese, 55 Viet Nam, 16 Malaysians, 2 Rwandans, 2 Indonesians and 1 Kyrgyzstani. Two months later, 167 Chinese were returned to Shanghai for a further investigation by the Shanghai police.
The PAOCC found several safes, which they had intended to drill open with a rig, but on the day of the raid, all the rig workers disappeared, saying they were going to a meeting. The rig was gone, and they had to spend 10 hours finding an acetylene welding gun. The PAOCC admits that this was unprofessional, as the flame of the welding torch burned a safe when it was unpacked.
But they still harvested boxes of documents that pointed the way to the investigation: cryptocurrency scams, pig slaughter, illegal detentions, and tax evasion. Soon, the Chinese Embassy in the Philippines informed the PAOCC that there were six Chinese fugitives from Zunyuan. Among them, the big boss named Huang Zhiyang was wanted by the Philippine side at the request of China in 2021. "He was very difficult to catch because he would escape through the underground passage and the helicopter," the PAOCC said. They also found that Huang Zhiyang held passports from China, the Federation of St. Kitts and Nevis, and Cyprus.
The PAOCC also had some bonus gains: Alice Guo paid for many utilities and housekeeping at the Baofu campus, and she also attended a number ·of meetings and signed documents on behalf of POGO.
Alice Guo正是班班市的市长。
In 2022, Alice Guo ran for mayor of Banban as an independent, becoming the first female mayor of Banban with less than 500 votes.
Like many towns in the Philippines, Banban has been mired in family politics for years. But in 2022, former mayor Jose Feliciano turned publicly · support Alice. After Alice was elected, her rivals said that even if they wanted to be mayor themselves, "but if the mayor is someone as good as Alice, we don't want to oppose her." ”
The mystery of Mayor Guo's life experience
Located in central Luzon, a two-hour drive from Manila, Banban is located at its southernmost point, named after Bambania, a lush aquatic plant in the town. Administratively, Banban is a second-class municipality directly under the jurisdiction of Tarlac Province, with an area of only 250 square kilometers and a population of less than 80,000.
Dominated by agriculture, the simple, slow lifestyle of the countryside continues, with markets only busy in the early morning and late afternoon. This also means that the area is still poor: there are frequent power outages, roads are uneven, and many people live in brick houses. In 2020, Banban's total income was less than RMB 32 million.
Before running for mayor, Alice Guo was a businessman. She owns or has a stake in at least 12 companies in Manila, Quezon, Pampanga and Panban, including pig farms, butchers, slaughterhouses, pig feed, food processing, car trading and clothing.
In 2019, Alice bought about 79,000 square meters of agricultural land on which Baofu is located – almost the size of nine football fields – and applied for a re-characterization of the land. Within two weeks, the application was approved and the agricultural land was changed to commercial and residential land.
Alice later said that when she was selling pork in the Clark Harbour district near Banban, she met Huang Zhiyang, a restaurateur, who suggested that she buy land and build a house in Banban, and they became partners. "Huang Zhiyang was in charge of the construction and operation of Baofu, and I just applied for a permit," Alice said, "I didn't know that he was a fugitive, he often went to other countries and sometimes brought me gifts." ”
In 2021, when Alice began her campaign for mayor of Banban, she withdrew her stake from the Baofu Complex, and the majority stake was taken over by a Quezon City resident. Today, the PAOCC is unable to locate the Quezon resident and believes that Alice's withdrawal is just a formality: when Alice withdraws, the Baofu Park is estimated to have spent about 746 million pesos (about 93 million yuan) in construction costs, but Alice holds 50% of the shares, and the share capital is only 1.2 million pesos (about 150,000 yuan).
But the residents of Banban don't know all this, they see a lovely, close to the people, and kind mayoral candidate.
▲Alice Guo在养殖场 图/YouTube账号Alice Leal Guo
Alice, who claims to have been born in 1986, has a baby face and straight black hair, has a sweet voice, and smiles with a mouthful of neat teeth. She visited many elderly people, women and children, hugged them tightly, gave money, cakes, grains, oils and eggs to the elderly and children, ran with the children, threshed fruits from the trees together, and sat on the roadside to eat boxed lunches together.
Once she held her grandmother's hand and chatted, and when she said that she was fat, she pinched the flesh on her belly and let the grandmother see it. The old woman reached out and pinched her belly, and then both of them laughed.
She also likes to dance and often makes short videos to share her life. In the video, she eats very simply, with Disney dolls piled up on the bed, Snoopy pillowcases on the duvet cover, many cartoon hair clips, and a variety of Chanel bags.
She's crazy about pink, not pale pink, it's Barbie pink, bright fluorescent pink. The clothes, pants and hats are Barbie powder, the cheering color is Barbie powder, the chairs at the event site are Barbie powder, the Christmas tree in Banban is Barbie powder, and the gifts to the citizens are also Barbie powder. After she was elected, Banban's city hall homepage was also changed to Barbie fans. In PAOCC's investigation materials, her helicopter is also black and pink.
Banban people like Mayor Guo very much. Unlike the former mayor of Manila, who spends most of her time in Banban, she has actively attracted investment, built new health centers, built roads, organized free dental check-ups for Banban citizens, vaccinated cats and dogs against rabies, and delivered birthday cakes to the elderly from the campaign to after she was elected.
"She's kind, helpful, and always offers free rides during traffic strikes," said a 7-Eleven convenience store employee on shift, "and if there's an event, a funeral, she'll show up and provide free tents and chairs." ”
The 7-Eleven convenience store was also introduced to Banban by Mayor Guo, and she also brought the first McDonald's and Jollibee (Happy Bee Fried Chicken, a famous fast food chain brand in the Philippines) to Banban.
With the city hall as the center, Mayor Guo built a POGO campus in the west and a McDonald's in the east. She said at least more than 200 Banban families have secured jobs at POGO.
▲The homepage of the Banban City Government website uses Alice Guo's favorite Barbie pink color
Before May 2024, no one doubted Mayor Guo's identity. Banban people believe she was born in the capital of Tarlac province, her hometown is only 20 kilometres from Banban, she grew up in Banban, and sometimes does business in other cities. In an interview with the Philippine television station ABS-CBN, some elderly people said that he had known Mayor Guo when she was 10 years old, and others said that Mayor Guo had lived in Banban for 20 years. However, in Mayor Guo's candidacy materials, the time she provided for her local residence is from May 2021.
After Mayor Guo was investigated by Philippine officials, she is still quite popular. Her supporters encouraged her on social media, erecting signs of support in the town, telling the media that the loss of Mayor Guo was a huge regret. In the same way that fans will say after the stars, supporters are also saying "wait for Alice", "believe in Alice", and "please give Alice some space." ”
In May, Mayor Guo attended two hearings investigating Baofu Land, at which she was unable to explain her life before becoming Mayor Guo: she had no primary school to university records, and she did not register her birth until she was 19 years old; She has a huge fortune in her name, but she cannot explain the source; She cooperated in business with others but said that she didn't know each other, and she and her brothers and sisters traveled abroad many times, but they also said they didn't know each other.
In late June, the Philippine National Bureau of Investigation confirmed that Mayor Guo's full name was Alice Leal Guo, the same person who immigrated to the Philippines with her mother in 2000. She was not born on July 12, 1986, but on August 31, 1990.
There is indeed an Alice Leal Guo born on July 12, 1986 in the Philippines, who is a typical Southeast Asian look, with a goose egg face and thick lips, thick eyebrows and deep eye sockets. Guo Huaping replaced Alice Leal Guo's identity information, and then the real Alice Leal Guo disappeared.
▲ Photos of two women who are also Alice Leal Guo Picture/Hearing materials
From Guo Huaping to Alice Guo
When investigating POGOs, it is common to ask the mayor to participate in a hearing, usually to investigate whether the local government is an umbrella for crime.
In the first inquiry about Guo Huaping's relationship with Baofu Park on May 10, Guo Huaping prepared a complete story: she bought land for Huang Zhiyang to develop, withdrew her shares, and knew nothing about the illegal activities involved.
But Hontiveros, the chairwoman of the Philippine Council on Women, Children and Family Relations and a staunch opponent of POGO in recent years, came prepared, and began to inquire about Guo's family background along the vast fortune in her name, and the mayor's narrative began to crumble.
"Where were you born, in the hospital, at home, or in the midwifery clinic?" Hontivolos asked.
"Honorable Councillor, as far as I know, was born in a family." Guo Huaping replied.
"At home. So where was your home at the time? ”
"Honorable Councillor, I don't remember."
"So, I'm curious, which elementary school did you graduate from?"
"I was educated at home because we lived on the farm." Guo Huaping replied.
Hontivolos then asked Guo Huaping where she went to high school and college, and the answer was that she was educated at home on the farm. Then, based on the registration information of the pork shop in Guo Huaping's name, Hontivolos asked her if the other two registered people surnamed Guo were her relatives, and she replied that she was not sure.
Hontivolos asked Guo Huaping if she had two brothers with her birth certificate, but Guo Huaping denied, "As far as I know, I am my mother's only child," she repeatedly stressed. And the name that appears with her in many documents, Lin Wenyi, she also claims not to know. Her mother's name is Amelia Leal, but she has never met her. As for the place where she claimed to have lived, it happened to be next door to the home of a Philippine senator.
"When were you probably old and lived there?" The senator asked.
"Adolescence."
"How old is it?"
"I don't remember much, Honorable Councillor."
"When I checked this 58 T. Santigo address, it turned out that it was the address of a friend of ours. So, in other words, I know the owners of this place, the Bayle family. So, are you renting to their house? What is your relationship with them? ”
"Honorable Councillor, I don't know."
▲Alice Guo attends the Philippine Congressional hearing Photo/Rappler
Such an answer caused an uproar at the hearing, raising doubts about her identity: If she was not Filipino, she could not run for mayor. Thirteen days after the hearing, Guo Huaping gave a television interview — at this time, the outside world still knew her as Alice Guo, and the first question was: Mayor Guo, are you Filipino?
"I'm Filipino." She replied.
In this television interview, Guo Huaping recounted a tragic story: she was the child of her father, Angelito Guo, and a Filipino maid who gave birth to her and left. She grew up on a farm, had a governess but no friends, was lonely and ashamed of being an illegitimate child, so she was reluctant to tell her story at the hearing. But she worked hard, started raising pigs at the age of 14, and became rich through hard work. Later, her friends who sold pork supported her in the election, making her mayor of Banban.
Two days after the interview, Ms. Guo attended a second hearing, where she repeated the story and responded to questions about the details with "I don't know" and "I don't remember." When talking about her mother, she added some emotional details: "I haven't met her, and to be honest, I had a grudge against her before this hearing. Because of this Senate hearing, I appealed, hoping to find her. ”
Amelia Leal is impossible to find because there is no record of a birth named Amelia Leal in the Philippines.
Who is Guo Huaping? Based on the transcripts of the four hearings, the PAOCC's investigation documents, industrial and commercial documents, and the investigation of Southern People Weekly in China, we roughly sketch such a Guo Huaping:
She was born on August 31, 1990 in a wealthy family in Jinjiang City, Fujian Province, China, and is the eldest sister with two younger brothers and a younger sister. Since the 1980s, his father, Guo Jianhui, has opened pig farms, garment factories, embroidery factories, restaurants, and participated in real estate development.
According to local recollections, when Guo Jianxing started his pork business, he was known as the "Pig Killing Award". But by the end of the 1990s, because the business was too big, Guo Jiancheng owed a lot of debt.
Just as Guo Jiancheng was in debt, in 1999, his wife, Lin Wenyi, invested $75,000 in Hua Fei, an embroidery center registered in the Philippines. The following year, with this investment, Lin Wenyi applied for a special investor residence visa in the Philippines with three children, including Guo Huaping. For the next three years, Guo Huaping studied at Linghui Christian Secondary School, a Chinese school in the Philippines.
In 2005, Guo Huaping obtained Alice Guo's birth certificate and obtained a Philippine passport. In 2011, Lin Wenyi changed the investment visa to a pension visa, and there was no Guo Huaping among his relatives.
"According to what our Chinese counterpart said, because she renounced her Chinese nationality and obtained Philippine nationality and passport, she automatically lost her rights as a Chinese citizen." "Keep in mind that China does not recognize dual citizenship," the PAOCC said. ”
Although Guo Jiancheng did not follow his wife's investment visa, he also immigrated to the Philippines during the same period and brought his pig breeding and embroidery clothing business to the Philippines. On May 13, 2004, his business licenses were revoked for Jinjiang Hualong Garment Industry Co., Ltd. and his shareholding Jinjiang Hualong Fashion Computer Embroidery Co., Ltd. for failing to undergo annual inspections in accordance with regulations.
It is worth noting that Guo Jianhui also used someone else's identity to live in the Philippines. He now holds a passport named "Guo Jianchong", which was renewed in November 2022.
In our investigation, Guo Jianchong first appeared as a partner of Guo Jianchong, serving as the deputy general manager of the embroidery company in Jinjiang; The second appearance was in a material from the Jinjiang City Notary Office dated July 7, 1999, which proved that Guo Huaping was the daughter of Guo Jianchong and Lin Wenyi; The third time was that the name was called her half-brother by Guo Huaping, but she later changed her words to say that this was her father.
However, according to Philippine immigration documents, Mr. Guo's wife, surnamed Xie, and his two children, were granted Philippine investment visas together, but the visas were cancelled on May 23, 2003, after Mr. Guo's family settled in the Philippines.
From the second hearing, Guo Huaping began to call Guo Jianchong her father. The evidence can basically confirm that they are a family: Guo Huaping's pig farm's industrial and commercial information contains "Guo Jianchong", and she and "Guo Jianchong" are registered to live together at 58 T. Santiago, and Lin Wenyi's travel records also show that she traveled with "Guo Jianchong" 170 times in six years.
At 6 o'clock in the evening on May 20, 2024, after Guo Huaping told about his tragic life in a TV interview, Guo Jiancheng left the Philippines with the passport of "Guo Jianzhong" and Lin Wenyi.
The men behind Alice
"Southern People Weekly" learned from two paths that Guo Huaping's father's name was Guo Jianhui. First, in May 2022, organizations such as the Federation of Townships of Jinjing Town, Jinjiang City, the Philippines and the Village Committee of Jinjing Town, Jindai Village, successively released the good news of congratulating Alice Leal Guo, the beloved daughter of the Township Sage Guo Jian, on being elected mayor of Banban; The second is that many local Chinese media in the Philippines reported and sources confirmed that Guo Jianhui and Guo Huaping are father and daughter.
▲The congratulatory letter from the Jinjing Town Chamber of Commerce in the Philippines to Guo Jianxian's father and daughter Photo/WeChat account of the village committee of Jinjing Town
As for why Guo Jiancheng lives in the Philippines under Guo Jianchong's name, we do not know at this time.
Ms. Guo said her father still had a business in China, and the Philippine immigration bureau documents might prove that: he flew out of the country an average of once a month. In addition to flying back to Fujian, he frequently flies to Thailand, Japan, Singapore, Australia, Dubai, U.A.E., Taiwan and Hong Kong. According to the annual reports released by New Hope Liuhe Company in 2019 and 2020, the pig companies under Guo Huaping's name have always owed New Hope Feed.
In the past 10 years, Guo Jianhui has distributed 290,000 yuan of condolences to the elderly over 60 years old in Chadai Village, donated 100,000 yuan to the Philippine Association, and donated 10,000 yuan saved by his father's funeral to the Chaodai Elderly Association. The clothing and real estate businesses mentioned above are all partnerships between Guo Jiancheng and his brothers. There are three brothers in the family, Guo Jiancheng is the second, the eldest is in Hong Kong to do business, and the eldest is the village party secretary of Chaodai Village.
Guo Huaping claimed that her father had given her money from time to time since she was 14 years old in order to teach her how to manage her business. Sometimes it's 1 million pesos (about 125,000 yuan), sometimes it's 500,000 pesos (about 62,000 yuan). In 2009 and 2010, with her as the business contact, the family partnered to establish QJJ Farm and QJJ Embroidery Center. Since 2017, the international flight records of the Guo Jian Award have become more frequent.
In 2019, Guo Huaping came forward to buy the land for work and began to build Baofu Park. Her partners include Huang Zhiyang, Filipino Rachel Joan Malonzo Carreon, Chinese passport holder Zhang Ruijin and Dominican passport holder Baoying Lin, the latter two involved in a S$3 billion money laundering case in Singapore in 2023 and pleaded guilty in Singapore in 2024. Huang Zhiyang is also the owner of Lucky South 99, the largest POGO in the Philippines, which is only 24 kilometers away from Baofu.
▲Huang Zhiyang, the behind-the-scenes boss of Baofu and Lucky South 99, has been wanted by the Chinese government for many years Photo/Rappler
Also in 2019, Guo Huaping applied for permission from the Banban Municipal Government on behalf of Hongsheng to operate a POGO in Baofu Complex, the first and only POGO in Talac Province. At this time, Hongsheng had obtained a license from the Philippine Recreational Gaming Corporation (PAGCOR) to legally engage in offshore gambling.
In 2021, Guo Huaping prepared to run for mayor of Banban and was elected the following year. In February 2023, Philippine police raided Hongsheng, canceling Hongsheng's POGO license for being involved in cryptocurrency fraud, and hunting down three executives, including Yu Zheng Can and Huang Zhiyang.
But after that, Hongsheng continued to operate in secret in Banban until October 28, 2023, when a company called Zunyuan Technology applied for a temporary license for POGO, and Hongsheng became Zunyuan. And it was Guo Huaping who approved Zunyuan's local permit and acquiesced in their operation on floors beyond the scope of the permit.
Hongsheng, Zunyuan, and many companies under Guo Huaping's name, such as QJJ Pig Factory, QJJ Smelter, etc., all have the same accountant, Filipino Nancy Gamo.
At the hearing, Guo Huaping denied that Zunyuan's partner had similarities with Hongsheng. Indeed, it was not until the hearing summoned the 13 partners of Hongsheng that it was discovered that most of them did not exist, and the people who did not have the ability to open POGOs.
For example, Merly Joy Castro, the owner of a computer store in Concepción, near Banban, learned that she had been registered as a shareholder of Hongsheng when she was summoned. In addition, Castro saw some acquaintances in the grand list of shareholders: Evangelist, the company's founder, was actually a vegetable seller, Laranan, the president and treasurer, who had been selling breakfast for many years, and Yturralde, the secretary of the board of directors, was actually a barbecue aunt, all of whom came from the public market of Concepción, and all lived in bungalows with rusty iron roofs and mottled concrete walls. And their signatures and tax ID numbers written on Hongsheng industrial and commercial documents do not match their real information.
On July 12, 2024, the Philippine Anti-Money Laundering Commission ordered the freezing of 36 bank accounts, 12 plots of land, 12 motor vehicles and a helicopter in Guo Huaping's name. The next day, the commission revealed that Guo Huaping's account had billions of pesos in the past three years, none of which had appeared in her company's account and that no bank had reported it to the Anti-Money Laundering Committee. And her joint account with Baofu Park has been directly transferred to Hongsheng executive Yu Zhengcan.
Guo's account also has a large amount of money with Yang's account, and Yang's Philippine business partner is the promoter of another illegal POGO (Brickhartz Technologies Inc.). In the congratulatory letter from the Philippine Jinjing Chamber of Commerce to Guo Huaping mentioned above, Yang Hongjiang also signed it.
But Yang Hongjiang's more noteworthy identity is the younger brother of Yang Hongming, an economic adviser to former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte.
The rise and fall of POGO
From 2016 to 2022, hundreds of POGOs were licensed in the Philippines, and in 2019 alone, there were nearly 300 licensed POGOs.
POGO's taxes and licensing fees generate a lot of revenue for the Philippines. From 2017 to October 2022, the total tax revenue collected by the Philippine government from POGO reached 53.8 billion Philippine pesos (about 6.7 billion yuan). Especially during the pandemic in 2021, the Duterte administration made it clear that it encouraged POGOs and supported increased taxes on them.
According to the Nikkei Asian Review, POGOs employ more than 500,000 foreigners and are involved in serious human trafficking, with the main victims being residents of Chinese mainland, followed by Southeast Asian countries.
The Chinese government has always taken a clear stand against POGO, and in 2020 added the crime of "organizing participation in gambling outside the country (territory)" into the criminal law. On June 14, 2024, the Chinese Embassy in the Philippines once again called on the Philippines to completely ban the offshore gaming industry at an early date and completely solve this social problem at its root. In 2023, China assisted the Philippines in banning five offshore gaming parks and repatriated nearly 1,000 Chinese citizens. A spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in the Philippines pointed out on June 14 that the vast majority of Chinese citizens involved in the case are victims of offshore gambling in the Philippines, and the Chinese government has the responsibility to protect the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese citizens.
According to PAOCC Deputy Secretary Cruz's testimony, in 2023 in Metro Manila, the Southern District, and the Northern District, they received about 60-63 reports of foreign deaths related to POGOs. But he admits that the situation would be complicated if the police report found that the deceased was a foreigner; And if it is only written "the deceased was found", it will be recorded as an unsolved homicide case and will not be contacted by the embassy for investigation.
"We were able to determine that in some cases they were related to POGO because they used to be employees of POGO. Some of their family members, co-workers reported their disappearance, and some ransom-demanding videos showed them being tortured; In some sad circumstances, their bodies appear in the video. Cruz also affirmed that these victims are often tormented by being trafficked repeatedly between different POGOs.
In early July 2024, Pampanga province near Banban reported the recent discovery of the bodies of nine foreigners, including six Chinese, one Viet Nam, one Malaysian, and one Japanese. Three of the Chinese victims appeared not far from the Lucky South 99 gaming park.
Cruz reported on the scene of the official Philippine raid on Lucky South 99 in June: "We waited for two days and suddenly found someone screaming and running out, so we got a search warrant to enter the place. We saw a man cuffed to a bed frame and we rescued him. Another person shouted in Chinese and we found the man tied up in the room, he said it had been 10 days and had only given him water. When we went in, he was terrified and thought we were members of the torture team. ”
"In 12 to 15 rooms, we saw baseball bats that had been beaten out of shape, and electric shockers were scattered all over the place. In other POGOs, we have also found torture rooms, but here, torture is the norm, and hurting people and even killing people is the norm. ”
▲ The Chinese in the lucky south 99 were handcuffed and chained to the bed and beaten Photo/Screenshot of the Philippine ANC TV program
Some of the rescued people had pictures of the victims stored in their mobile phones. Some were dead, tied up, handcuffed to the bed frame. On July 17, during the independent investigation of the Public Order and Safety Committee of the Philippine House of Representatives, three Chinese who had been trapped in Lucky South 99 described their experience of being abducted to POGO: they were directly towed to a car on the side of the road in the Philippines and taken to the park.
The investigation also featured four videos of Lucky South 99: a Chinese man kneeling on the ground, repeatedly whipped with a belt, trying to protect his head, only to be slapped more brutally by his abuser; A Chinese woman was kicked over after being hit on the head and back with an iron pipe; Two Chinese men were electrocuted and tied to the foot of the bed with electric shockers and genitals. The stun baton glowed blindly, and the sizzling sound of electricity mingled with the screams of the victims.
There is not only torture in POGO, but also prostitution and even sexual abuse driven by human trafficking. In the October 2023 raid on the POGO hub Smart Web, which PAOCC had received from more than 200 Chinese people reporting on Smart Web, women were forced to provide sexual services, and some rooms even had menus for sexual services. In an observation room called the Aquarium (a room with clear glass for viewing and selecting women), the PAOCC found seven trafficked women.
▲Philippine officials seized 2,312 computers in Lucky South 99 Photo/Rappler
Crime is always looking for a breeding ground. In the Philippines, it is not difficult to buy off local governments, and Harry Roque, who once served as President Duterte's spokesman, lobbied for Lucky South 99 to obtain a license to go to the Philippine Entertainment and Gaming Company (PAGCOR), but Capil, the mayor of Lucky South 99, ignored the report and acquiesced in a series of illegal acts.
In the Philippines, it is not difficult to obtain a fake identity: the Philippine Ministry of Foreign Affairs' passport director, Pangwi, testified that 308 fake birth certificates were issued in 2023 to obtain Philippine passports. In the testimony of Thailand Police Colonel Dominador Matalang, there is a travel agency in Laos that provides services for obtaining Philippine passports for 30,000 yuan a copy.
At the July hearing, PAGCOR was still defending POGO on the grounds of economic benefits: "(Closing POGO) we will lose 22 billion to 23 billion pesos (about 2.7-2.9 billion yuan) in tax revenue, and about 200,000 Filipinos will lose their jobs, which is an estimated figure for 2024." "We all know that nearly seventy percent of PAGCOR's revenue goes back to the people and the country." ”
At the end of the hearing on June 26, 2024, Hontivolos reiterated the consensus that opposition to POGO transcends borders: "Hundreds of Chinese citizens have been tortured and even killed in Banban and Polak (where Lucky South 99 is located). We're helping them too. ”
After the true and false Alice Guo incident detonated public opinion in the Philippines, the voice of opposition to POGO in the Philippines became louder and louder. On July 22, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos announced in his third State of the Union address that from this moment on, all POGOs would be banned. "They masquerade as legitimate entities, but dabble in illegal areas far from gambling, such as financial fraud, money laundering, prostitution, human trafficking, kidnapping, brutal torture and murder." Marcos said. He demanded that PAGCOR end all POGOs by the end of the year and that the Department of Labor and Employment help Filipinos affected by the ban find new jobs.
However, many POGOs and their surrounding industries have been relocating to Dubai since 2021. In recent years, the U.A.E. is going through a process of legalising gambling. The bookmaker first signs an agreement with the hotel resort to operate the casino in a specific area. In 2023, the U.A.E. established the General Directorate for the Supervision of Commercial Gaming (GCGRA) to regulate all types of gambling.
After two hearings in absentia, the Philippine Senate found that Guo Huaping's family and eight partners, including her family, had flouted Congress, and then issued an arrest warrant on July 13.
The Philippine police have not yet found Ms. Guo, but late at night on July 18, Ms. Guo posted a lengthy post on her Facebook account: She needs to regain her health and peace of mind in order to properly handle all the legal issues against her. If the Senate has evidence against her, she is willing to continue to face Hontivillos in an environment of fair trial and verification.
▲ Alice Guo's response to a long post sent late at night on July 18, 2024, her social platform account is no longer visible
"I don't have a Chinese passport." "Our country (the Philippines) is facing many key issues such as poverty, unemployment, food shortages, medical services, environmental degradation and human rights violations, and I call on them (Senators such as Hontivolos) to pay attention to these issues instead of constantly threatening to arrest me and accusing me of participating in various POGO-related crimes, which are untrue and baseless," she stressed. Am I the biggest threat to the country? ”