Indonesian authorities return women linked to POGO crimes to Philippines
Shiela Guo was picked up last week and is now in Philippine custody at a senate detention centre, the Manila Bulletin reported Monday. Guo’s sister, Alice, is wanted in connection with alleged crimes at a Philippine Offshore Gaming Operation (POGO) in Bamban.
Officials have also detained Cassandra Li Ong, an alleged Guo associate involved with a POGO in Porac, Pampanga. Ong is being held in a house of representatives detention centre.
The women were apprehended by Indonesian police in Indonesia, which has an extradition agreement with the Philippines. ABS CBN News reported that the women entered Indonesia through Singapore on a cruise ship and had help from a Singaporean national. They were returned to the Philippines on 23 August and handed over to officials of the National Bureau of Investigation.
Alleged criminal activity resulted in POGO ban
The Bamban facility was raided in May on suspicion of running online love and crypto scams. More than 800 Filipinos and foreign workers were freed from the compound. Following their release, many claimed they had been victims of human trafficking and abuse.
A subsequent probe indicated that Guo, then mayor of Bamban, was actually a Chinese national named Guo Hua Ping. She was allegedly part owner of the POGO and may have funded it with money from China.
Guo ignored a subpoena and refused to testify at senate hearings on the alleged crimes, claiming harassment. Shortly thereafter, she was suspended as mayor and her assets were frozen. Government officials did not cancel her Philippine passport until after she vanished. Her whereabouts remain unknown.
The Porac POGO was raided in June following reports it had engaged in human trafficking, torture and prostitution. A total of 186 Filipino and foreign workers were rescued.
The back-to-back raids heightened the clamor for a POGO ban. In a 22 July state-of-the-nation address, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr complied, calling for the immediate end of the offshore operations.
Hearings continue in POGO crimes case
Shiela Guo is under 24-hour guard, said senate sergeant-at-arms Roberto Ancan in a Monday interview. “She has no cellular phone, she can use our own phone to contact her lawyer.”
Representative Robert Ace Barbers called Ong “a very vital resource person” in the quad-committee’s investigation into illegal POGOs.
“The first question she will be asked is whether she was aware of the scam hubs, torture, prostitution and other illicit activities” at the Porac POGO, he said.
The search for Alice Guo continues. She, too, was last tracked to Indonesia.