Alice Guo arrested in Indonesia: Ex-mayor’s escape from Philippines exposes lapses in security intel

MANILA – A former mayor of a small Philippine town accused of being a Chinese spy and crime boss has been arrested by the Indonesian authorities after being on the run for more than a month.

Alice Guo, the former mayor of Bamban,

was arrested close to midnight on Sept 3

inside a house in Tangerang City in the Greater Jakarta area, following her controversial escape from the Philippines in July amid investigations into her alleged links to Chinese criminal syndicates.

Philippine Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla announced that Indonesia has said it would turn Guo over to the Philippines in exchange for Australian drug kingpin Gregor Haas, who was arrested in Manila in May and is one of Jakarta’s most wanted drug fugitives.

The Philippines’ National Bureau of Investigation director Jaime Santiago said the authorities are hoping to take Guo back to Manila as early as Sept 5.

She will then face the Philippine Senate for questioning.

Senators

issued an arrest warrant for Guo on July 13

after she refused to appear before the Senate in relation to a probe into her alleged involvement in the country’s controversial online casino industry, or Philippine offshore gaming operators (Pogos).

The Philippine authorities say these online casinos have lured foreign workers, including Chinese nationals, with promises of legal jobs in the country, only to trick them into working for scam hubs.

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr

banned Pogos on July 22

following public outrage over the illegal activities.

Guo’s case has captivated the nation’s attention at a time when tensions between Manila and Beijing are rising over their South China Sea disputes.

“Alice Guo has nowhere else to go, and we will not stop until those who helped her escape are arrested too,” Senator Risa Hontiveros told reporters on Sept 4.

She has been leading the senate investigation on Guo since May.

Guo is alleged to be behind the criminal activities of a now-shutdown Pogo firm, Lucky South 99, operating in Porac town in Pampanga province, 108km north of the capital Manila and near the sleepy town of Bamban, where Guo was elected mayor in 2022.

She and her co-conspirators are accused of human trafficking, tax fraud and laundering criminal proceeds totalling 100 million pesos (S$2.3 million).  

The government stripped Guo of her mayorship on Aug 13 and

froze her accounts

amounting to billions of pesos.

Guo is believed to be a Chinese national named Guo Hua Ping and is suspected of being a Chinese “asset”. Guo, however, maintains that she is a natural-born Philippine citizen and has denied all allegations against her.

The controversial former mayor appeared twice before senators on May 7 and May 22, but gave evasive answers.

She refused to show up in successive hearings, prompting the Senate to issue an arrest warrant for her on July 13.

Less than a week later, Guo, her siblings Shiela and Wesley Guo, and business associate Cassandra Li Ong managed to evade the Philippine authorities and used several boats to reach Malaysia on July 18, before

travelling to Singapore on July 21

and taking a ferry to Indonesia on Aug 18.

That Guo was able to slip out of the Philippines was likely because law enforcement authorities, who were required to closely monitor her movements, had issued only an immigration lookout bulletin order.

A hold departure order would have compelled the government to bar her from leaving the country.

The Indonesian government arrested the former mayor’s sister and her business associate on Aug 22 for allegedly breaking immigration laws there.

Mr Marcos said on Sept 4 that Guo’s arrest serves as a warning to those who want to evade justice.

“The arm of the law is long, and it will reach you,” he said, thanking the Indonesian government for working with the Philippines to arrest Guo.

Senate president Francis Escudero said Guo’s arrest is a “crucial breakthrough” in the Philippines’ fight against organised crime and corruption.

“Her capture not only moves us closer to bringing her to justice but also offers a chance to uncover the illegal Pogo operations that have plagued our country,” Mr Escudero said.

But the fact that it was a foreign government that captured Guo and her accomplices is an “embarrassment” for the Philippines, Manila 6th District Representative Benny Abante told local broadcaster ANC.

“The Indonesian government showed that it is bent on arresting illegal aliens, while these people (Guo, her siblings and Ong) were able to leave the Philippines because of the lapses of our own Bureau of Investigation,” said Mr Abante.

The Philippines’ immigration bureau has long gained notoriety due to corruption, with officials and staff getting charged over the years with accepting bribes and being embroiled in human trafficking and other crimes in the country.

In April, the Philippines’ appellate court upheld the conviction of three Filipino immigration officers who allowed foreign Pogo workers, mostly Chinese, to enter the country without going through the proper immigration process at the airport for a fee of 10,000 pesos per person.

This practice was the subject of an earlier senate investigation led in 2023 by Ms Hontiveros.

The Philippine government is now facing pressure to improve its security and intelligence capabilities since the escape by the Guo siblings and Ong, said defence analyst Robin Garcia of Manila-based public affairs firm WR Advisory Group.

“The expose of Senator Risa Hontiveros (in 2023) showed that pro-China individuals do have some sway in government, specifically the Bureau of Immigration,” he told The Straits Times. “I think there should be an active effort really to identify these pro-China groups.”

Political scientist Jean Encinas-Franco said the fact that Guo managed to run for office despite her allegedly shady background is “an indictment of the Philippine electoral system”.

Guo has been accused of hiding her Chinese nationality by fabricating her birth certificate and other records so that she could run for public office, a right reserved only for Philippine citizens.

“If there’s any doubt that our electoral system is flawed, then it’s Alice Guo’s case that would prove it. How was she able to run for mayor?

“That means there is money politics involved,” Professor Encinas-Franco told ST, saying that Guo may have paid off people to create her citizenship records.