A Philippine court on Thursday handed life sentences to Alice Guo a Chinese national who had posed as a Filipina to win a mayoral post and seven co-accused for human trafficking, according to state prosecutors.
Guo, who previously served as mayor of Bamban town north of Manila, was found guilty of running a massive Chinese-operated online scam hub where hundreds of workers were coerced into conducting fraud schemes under the threat of torture.
Authorities raided the sprawling compound in March 2024 after a Vietnamese worker escaped and alerted police.
Inside, they discovered more than 700 people from the Philippines, China, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan, Indonesia and Rwanda.
Investigators also recovered documents allegedly identifying Guo as president of the company that owned the facility, which housed offices, luxury villas and a large swimming pool.
State prosecutor Olivia Torrevillas confirmed outside a Manila regional court that all eight defendants some of them foreign nationals received life imprisonment.
“After just over a year, the court handed down a favorable decision. Alice Guo was convicted along with seven co-accused. Life imprisonment,” Torrevillas said, declining to name the others due to confidentiality rules.
A spokesman for the Philippine Anti-Organized Crime Commission said Guo and three others were convicted of “organising trafficking,” while four additional defendants were found guilty of “acts of trafficking.”
Guo, 35, was arrested in Indonesia in September 2024 after fleeing the Philippines.
Although she won the mayoral race in Bamban the very town where the scam centre was located a Manila court ruled in June that she was ineligible to hold office because she is a Chinese citizen.
The Chinese embassy did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Online scam networks have surged across Southeast Asia in recent years, with thousands of operators involved.
A United Nations report estimated that victims across the region lost up to $37 billion in 2023, noting that global figures were likely far higher.
Such centres expanded rapidly in the Philippines during former president Rodrigo Duterte’s administration after regulators were authorised to issue nationwide licences.
Amid public outrage over the Guo scandal in 2024, President Ferdinand Marcos ordered a ban on offshore gambling operations and directed foreign workers at those sites to leave the country.
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