The disgraced mayor, wanted in the Philippines over alleged links to Chinese criminal networks, has been arrested in Indonesia after several weeks on the run, Philippines officials announced Wednesday, as they vowed to prosecute cases against her.
Alice Leal Guo - who immigration authorities in the Philippines said was actually a Chinese national named Guo Hua Ping - ran away in July amid speculation about her real identity after raids uncovered a giant scam center employing hundreds of people in her hometown.
The scandal had gripped the country for months as lawmakers dug deeper into the allegations against Guo through a senate inquiry that heard claims of illegal gambling activities, money laundering, human trafficking, and fraud.
As pressure mounted on Guo, 34, to account for how she accumulated millions of dollars in assets as a first-term politician within two years of taking public office, she vanished, fleeing the country allegedly via a clandestine network of vans and small boats.
From the Philippines, authorities believe she crossed the sea to Malaysia, then Singapore and Indonesia, where local police caught up with her in the early hours of Wednesday.
In the video provided by Philippine authorities, Guo was seen, in baby pink pajama set and white jacket, being escorted down a staircase in Jakarta's Tangerang City by Indonesian authorities.
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., through his video statement shared via his Facebook page, welcomed the news that finally law enforcers arrested Guo:.
"Let this be a lesson to all those who think they can outrun the law. That's just futile. The arm of the law is long, and it will reach you," he said.
Guo's lawyers wrote in a statement sent to CNN Thursday that the arrest was a "welcome development" now that she would have the chance to "answer the allegations and issues thrown against her."
We are confident that Alice L. Guo will reveal her excellence and persistence when put through a series of ordeals," the David Buenaventura and Ang Law Office said.
Falling from grace
The bespectacled candidate for mayor of Bamban, a small town in Tarlac province about 60 miles north of Manila, appeared in 2022 campaign material posted to YouTube with the description: "Get to know the real Alice Guo."
Clad in a pink polo shirt and jeans, she's seen waving to her supporters who are also attired in pink - her signature color. The campaign worked and Guo was elected.
Her provincial life seemed so ordinary. In her YouTube videos, she's seen tending her chickens and having deep fried dried fish for breakfast - just like most Filipinos.
However, the image of Guo as an enthusiastic, young public servant was called into question earlier this year when the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission or PAOCC received separate tip-offs from two workers who come from Malaysia and Vietnam.
Guo shows her chicken farm Bamban, Tarlac province in the Philippines in a YouTube video posted on April 20, 2022
They had asked for help to be sent back to their home countries after claiming to have been held against their will in a building in Bamban, home to just 78,000 people.
The building was suspected to be a Philippine Offshore Gaming Operation, or POGO, which caters to punters based in China, where gambling is illegal. Until July, POGOs were popular places of employment for tens of thousands of foreign workers.
But when law enforcement raided the Bamban complex in March, over 800 Filipinos, Chinese, Vietnamese and other nationals were found to have been working against their will in the complex.
According to government-run Philippine News Agency, police confiscated "love scam" scripts, firearms and mobile phones that were allegedly used for scam transactions.
These rescued workers had reportedly been forced to present themselves as lovers to lure people into sending money, a modus operandi more commonly referred to as "pig-butchering." It is a confidence fraud wherein the victims are lured by scammers, usually impersonating young women on the internet.
The Philippine Senate ordered an investigation into Guo last May 7 to get to the bottom of what was going on in Bamban, led by Senator Risa Hontiveros.
Guo failed to appear in at least three hearings, invoking death threats and mental health issues in a Facebook statement before her official account was pulled.
Meanwhile, raids against casino hubs continue, and public criticism over POGOs, or online gaming hubs, has intensified amid a mushrooming of the operation into nearly every part of the country.
Other investigations into the web of transactions in Bamban further revealed alleged links between the mayor and the dark world of gambling centers, some of which had been suspected of serving as money-laundering conduits.
In a nationally televised address on July 22, President Marcos Jr. showed his growing alarm over the explosion of offshore casinos: "I am ordering a total ban with immediate effect.".
Cloaking themselves as legitimate enterprises, their activities have expanded into criminal endeavors farthest from gaming, such as financial scamming, money laundering, prostitution, human trafficking, kidnapping, brutal torture, and even murder," Marcos said. "The grave abuse and disrespect of our system of laws must stop.
Suspected ties to China
Against the backdrop of heightened scrutiny, the senate investigation into Guo's alleged ties to Chinese criminals, which began in May, has been compulsive viewing for Filipinos hooked on the intrigue.
Many parts of Guo's life story just didn't add up, lawmakers said during the nationally televised sessions that ran for hours and were filled with the dizzying back and forth of questions aimed at Guo and her suspected accomplices.
In her testimony, Guo claimed she grew up on a livestock farm in the town of Bamban, saying she was the love child of a Filipino maid and Chinese man.
Guo speaks Tagalog eloquently, though, but she does not speak the regional language, Kapampangan, which is usually spoken in the town. She said she was homeschooled by a woman called "Teacher Rubilyn" and claimed she did not have any childhood friends who would vouch for her.
Guo eats fried dried fish, a typical Filipino dish in a video posted to YouTube on April 20, 2022.
Suspicions among lawmakers that she was working as an "asset" for Beijing grew, as they cited her evasive answers to questions about her Chinese parentage. Her alleged business ventures with foreigners who have criminal records also seemed to raise doubts.
Speculation reached a fever pitch when the senate probe showed her name as "Guo Hua Ping" according to immigration records in 2005. Later, the National Bureau of Investigation reported that her fingerprints matched that of a Chinese national with the same name.
Documents presented in the Philippine senate investigation revealed that Guo had incorporated Baofu Land Development in 2019 with supposed business partners Zhang Ruijin and Lin Baoying. It was registered to the same sprawling complex in Bamban where the workers were rescued by authorities.
Her suspected Chinese business partners Zhang and Lin are both serving prison time in Singapore for fraudulently using forged documents to launder millions of dollars.
With mounting evidence, AMLC and other law enforcement agencies of the Philippines filed multiple counts of money laundering against Guo and 35 others before the Department of Justice for allegedly laundering more than $1.8 million, or 100 million Philippine pesos, in proceeds from criminal activities.
The AMLC has also filed a forfeiture of property amounting to over 6 billion Philippine pesos, valued at $106 million against Guo and her associates.
Those facing charges are Guo, her supposed sister Shiela, and business partner Cassandra Li Ong for supposed scam farm operations under several firms: QSeed Genetics, Zun Yuan Technology Inc., Hongshen Gaming Technology Inc., QJJ Farms, and Baofu Land Development Inc.
But by the time the charges were filed last August 30, Guo was already on the run.
President Marcos Jr. said Guo would be entitled to standard legal rights but stressed the Philippines would waste no time in seeking justice and vowed to track down those who had helped her to flee.
"We will not allow this to prolong the resolution of the case whose outcome will be a victory for the Filipino people," he said.