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(3rd UPDATE) Filipino incorporators of the Philippine Offshore Gaming Operator (POGO) Hongsheng who claim their identities were stolen are acquitted
MANILA, Philippines – Alice Guo, the dismissed mayor of Bamban, Tarlac, was found guilty of human trafficking over her role in a scam hub in her town, a local judge ruled on Thursday, November 20.
Guo was sentenced to reclusion perpetua or 40 years in prison. The verdict was read by the Pasig Regional Trial Court Branch 167. Guo is also ordered to pay a fine of P2 million.
Guo was also ordered to pay four human trafficking victims P600,000 each for moral and exemplary damages. “All damages awarded shall earn interest at the rate of 6% per annum from the finality of this decision until full payment,” parts of the decision read.
We are still awaiting a full copy of the decision as of publishing time, and will update this story once we get it.
Filipino women incorporators of the Philippine offshore gaming operator (POGO), Hongsheng, who are vendors and who claimed their identities were stolen, were acquitted. They are: Thelma Laranan, Rowena Evangelista, Rita Yturralde, Merlie Joy Castro, and Maybeline Millo. They were ordered released from jail “unless they are all being detained for some other lawful case,” said the decision. The five women were also included in a separate money laundering charge over the same scam hub, but their alleged offenses or attempt/conspiracy to commit money laundering are bailable.
But another Filipino incorporator, Jamielyn Santos Cruz, was also found guilty alongside Guo. Cruz’s brother is the partner of Guo’s chief-of-staff at the municipal hall. Baofu’s secretary, another Filipino Rachelle Malonzo Carreon, was also found guilty. Walter Wong Long, the person whom the trafficking victims pointed to as the one who made them sign an affidavit that they would not be pressing charges, was also found guilty. Like Guo, they were also ordered to each pay the P2-million fine, and the P600,000 damages per victim.
Guo, Carreon, and Cruz will be transferred to Correctional in Mandaluyong, and Long to the New Bilibid Prison in Muntinlupa.
They can appeal their convictions to the higher courts.
The scam compound in Bamban in Central Luzon has been forfeited to the government. This is worth an estimated P6 billion, according to the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission (PAOCC) which led the crackdown on POGOs.
Guo’s role
Guo incorporated the real estate firm Baofu, which then leased the seven-hectare property just behind the municipal hall in Bamban, where she was elected mayor in 2022.
Guo said she divested before she ran and won as mayor, but the prosecution presented evidence that the divestment was doubtful.
Guo’s business partner in Baofu is the notorious Chinese gang leader Huang Zhiyang, who is wanted in China. They were both business partners with two of the money laundering convicts in Singapore. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime said in a previous report that some of the dirty money generated in the Philippines were laundered in Singapore.
Huang is still evading the case, and the two Singapore convicts were eventually deported to Cambodia.
Aside from the women vendors in Tarlac, the incorporators include a still at-large Chinese man who shared a large bank account with Michael Yang’s brother, Hongjiang Yang. Michael Yang was a former economic adviser to former president Rodrigo Duterte.
The cases will remain alive against the aforementioned Chinese bosses who are still at large. – Rappler.com