"Guo, who served as mayor of a town north of Manila, was found guilty of overseeing a Chinese-operated online gambling centre where hundreds of people were forced to run scams or risk torture. The sprawling complex which included office buildings, luxury villas and a large swimming pool was raided in March 2024 after a Vietnamese worker escaped and called police. More than 700 Filipinos, Chinese, Vietnamese, Malaysians, Taiwanese, Indonesians and Rwandans were found on site, along with documents allegedly showing that Guo was president of a company that owned the compound."
"All eight defendants, some of whom were foreign nationals, were sentenced to life in prison, state prosecutor Olivia Torrevillas said outside a regional courthouse in Manila. After over just one year, the court ... gave us a favourable decision. Alice [Guo] was convicted along with seven other co-accused. Life imprisonment, Torrevillas said, declining to name Guo's co-defendants due to a confidentiality law."
"A spokesperson for the Philippine Anti-Organised Crime Commission told reporters in a group chat that Guo and three others had been convicted of organising trafficking inside the compound. Four more were found guilty of acts of trafficking, the spokesperson said. Guo, 35, was arrested by Indonesian police in September 2024 after fleeing the Philippines. Although she was elected mayor of Bamban town, the site of the scam centre, a Manila court ruled in June that as a Chinese citizen Guo was never eligible for the position."
Alice Guo, posing as a Filipina and elected mayor of a town north of Manila, was found to have overseen a Chinese-operated online gambling centre where hundreds were forced to run scams under threat of torture. Authorities raided a sprawling compound in March 2024 after a Vietnamese worker escaped; more than 700 people of various nationalities were discovered and documents linked Guo to the company owning the site. Eight defendants were sentenced to life imprisonment. Guo fled the Philippines and was arrested in Indonesia in September 2024; a Manila court ruled she was ineligible to be mayor as a Chinese citizen.
Read at www.theguardian.com
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]