Fugitive 'Chinese spy mayor' wanted by Philippines arrested in Indonesia

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

Alice Guo is the disgraced former mayor of the town of Bamban in the Philippines . She is accused of spying for China under a false identity and being part of a criminal network that includes international scams, human smuggling, and money laundering.

Guo was arrested on Tuesday in Indonesia where she had fled to after investigations against her picked up pace.

Guo’s came has come to light at a time when China-Philippines relations are already quite poor amid continued Chinese aggression in the South China Sea. The report of penetration of Chinese spies into Philippine government is further set to inflame the relations and adversely affect the attitude towards China. Guo’s case has already grabbed national attention in the country.

What’s the case against Alice Guo?

Guo was elected as the Mayor of Bamban on the back of an image of a young and enthusiastic public servant, but her fall for grace has been quick.

The fall started 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, according to CNN.

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

The authorities said ’love scam’ scripts, firearms, and mobile phones used in scam were recovered from there, according to the report.

The centre was, therefore, running an international scam where people held against their will were made to pose as lovers to lure people to send money by impersonating as young women on the internet, according to the report.

The Philippine Senate opened an investigation into the issue that also included the role of Mayor Guo as the centre was running close to her office, according to BBC.

During the investigation, as pressure mounted on Guo to explain how her wealth rose to millions within just two years of being a mayor, she vanished form public. After her arrest in Indonesia, the authorities have said she escaped via several boats and crossed Malaysia and Singapore on her way to Indonesia, as per BBC.

Alice Guo identified as Chinese national

After Guo ignored Senate summons, the Senate issued a warrant against her. But she had vanished by then.

As the investigation continued, the authorities found that Guo was actually a Chinese national and her real name was not Alice Guo.

Immigration records showed that Guo’s real name was ‘Guo Hua Ping’ and her fingerprints in government records matched with that of a Chinese national of the same name, according to CNN.

The investigation also found that the scam centre catering to Chinese nationals was run by Guo in league with a Chinese national, which further bolstered the case of her being a Chinese spy.

The CNN reported that the senate investigation found that an entity, Baofu Land Development, was incorporated in 2019 at the address of the scam centre and the three owners of the entity were Guo and two other Chinese nationals.