Alice Guo, a fugitive small-town mayor under investigation for her alleged ties to Chinese criminal syndicates, arrived back in the Philippines this morning after her extradition by Indonesian authorities. Guo, 34, the former mayor of Bamban, a town in Tarlac province, is at the center of an ongoing Senate investigation into her links to illegal online gaming and scam operations.
As Rappler reported, Interior Secretary Benjamin Abalos and police chief Gen. Rommel Marbil flew to Jakarta yesterday to facilitate Guo’s deportation and finalize the details of the extradition. Guo was then taken aboard a charter flight which arrived in Manila at around 1:10 a.m. this morning.
There have been numerous reports that in exchange for extraditing Guo, Indonesian authorities are seeking the return from the Philippines of Australian Gregor Johann Haas, one of Indonesia’s most-wanted drug suspects, who was arrested in Cebu in May. Khrisna Murti, the chief of the international division of the Indonesian national police, said on Wednesday that “exchange efforts are still being negotiated,” the Associated Press reported.
Speaking to the press at the Jakarta metropolitan police headquarters, Abalos praised his counterparts for the “meticulous operation” to locate Guo, who was arrested on Tuesday in Tangerang, on the outskirts of the capital Jakarta. “On behalf of our country, and of course our President, we would like to thank you for all you have done,” he said, as per Rappler.
In a separate report, Rappler detailed the frenzied arrangements needed to secure Guo’s return, which included a Tarlac court’s last-minute issuing of an arrest warrant for Guo, charging her with two counts of corruption. A standing Senate arrest warrant, issued in July after Guo failed to honor a summons to appear before the Senate’s investigative committee, was reportedly insufficient to secure her extradition.
In a post on Facebook, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. thanked Indonesia for its assistance, and stated that the “close cooperation between our two governments has made this arrest possible.”
“Let this serve as a warning to those who attempt to evade justice: Such is an exercise in futility,” he added. “The arm of the law is long and it will reach you.”
The extradition brings to an end a months-long manhunt for Guo, who first came under scrutiny following raids in February and March on two illegal Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators, known commonly as POGOs, which were operating from properties in Bamban allegedly owned by a company belonging to Guo.
The Senate opened an investigation in May, which has since been marked by a string of dramatic revelations befitting a soap opera. Senator Risa Hontiveros, who is leading the investigation, has presented documents showing that Guo is actually a Chinese national named Guo Huaping, who was born in China and only arrived in the Philippines as a teenager in the 1990s. She then faked a birth certificate showing that she was born in Tarlac, allowing her to run successfully for local office in Bamban in 2022. Guo is also accused of being a Chinese spy, a claim that has a particular potency given the ongoing tensions between Manila and Beijing in the Spratly Islands.
Despite denying any wrongdoing in testimony to the Senate, Guo was subsequently dismissed from her post for grave misconduct. She then subsequently disappeared, prompting the Senate to issue a warrant for her arrest in July. Philippines authorities claim that she then surfaced in Bali, where she boarded a flight on July 17 for Kuala Lumpur. They then tracked her to Singapore and back to Indonesia, where she arrived via ferry on August 18.
One effect of the Guo saga has been to increase scrutiny of POGOs, widespread and mostly Chinese-run online gaming operations. In July, Marcos ordered a ban on POGOs, accusing them of ties to “financial scamming, money laundering, prostitution, human trafficking, kidnapping, brutal torture, even murder.”
In addition to the corruption charges listed in the Tarlac arrest warrant, Guo and her associates are likely to face anti-trafficking and money laundering charges. The Bureau of Internal Revenue also filed a case against Guo for tax evasion.
Officials said that Guo was scheduled to undergo a medical checkup at the police headquarters at Camp Crame before being handed to the Senate’s sergeant-at-arms today. Abalos told the press that Guo would also be provided protection, after expressing concerns that she had received death threats.
“When I talked to Alice, there seemed to be a sigh of relief. She recalled the hardships of hiding. Relief that it’s finally over,” he said.