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The Star published November 20, 2025: Ex-Philippine mayor Alice Guo given life sentence for human trafficking.
A Philippine trial court on Thursday (Nov 20) sentenced former Bamban mayor Alice Guo accused of having ties to Chinese scam and criminal syndicates to life imprisonment after finding her guilty of human trafficking.
Guo ran for mayor in Bamban, an agricultural town north of the capital Manila, as a Filipino citizen, but she was later identified by law enforcement as Chinese national Guo Hua Ping.
Al Jazeera English published November 20, 2025: Chinese woman who became Philippines mayor gets life for human trafficking.
A Philippine court has sentenced a former mayor to life in prison over ties to Chinese scam syndicates.
Alice Guo has been convicted of human trafficking, more than a year after police found at least 800 foreign nationals engaging in online scams in the small town of Bamban.
Al Jazeera’s Barnaby Lo reports.
Bloomberg Originals published November 24, 2025: How a Scam and Chinese Spy Scandal Rocked the Philippines.
In 2022, a small town in the Philippines elected its first female mayor, a popular figure named Alice Guo who brought prosperity and new business to the area. But just a few years later, a police raid revealed her alleged connections to a $2 billion Singapore money laundering scandal and even claims of Chinese espionage.
BBC News
written by Fan Wang, Singapore and Jonathan Head,South East Asia correspondent
additional reporting by Virma Simonette
Wednesday November 19, 2025
A former Philippines mayor who was accused of spying for China has been found guilty of human trafficking for her role in running a scam centre.
On Thursday, she and three others were sentenced to life in prison and a fine of 2m pesos ($33,832; £25,942).
The case of Alice Guo has gripped the Philippines for years, after authorities uncovered one of the country's biggest scam centres in her small town of Bamban. Some 800 Filipinos and foreigners were later rescued from the scam hub after a raid, with many of them saying they were forced to run "pig butchering" scams.
The 35-year-old, who was arrested last year after being on the run for weeks, has denied all allegations against her.
It is not yet clear if she might appeal.
There are still five ongoing cases against Guo, including one where she has been charged with money laundering.
In 2022, Guo was elected as the mayor of Bamban, north of the capital Manila. Residents of Bamban earlier told the BBC she was seen as a caring and empathetic leader.
But in 2024, the sleepy town was thrust into the national spotlight after authorities uncovered a sprawling scam centre there that was hiding under online casinos, known locally as Philippine Offshore Gaming Operations (Pogo).
Pogos cater to clients in the Chinese mainland, where gambling is illegal.
Guo initially denied all knowledge of the compound, but a senate investigation that followed questioned her inability to detect the eight hectare centre that was located near her office.
It later emerged that the compound - which contained 36 buildings - was built on land which Guo previously owned.
They also found discrepancies in her life story – she was not, as she had claimed, born in the Philippines, but had migrated from China with her family as a teenager. MPs later found that her fingerprints matched those of a Chinese national named Guo Hua Ping.
She was soon removed from office. And as more details around the case emerged, she disappeared in July 2024, prompting an international operation across four countries to bring her back.
In September of the same year, she was arrested in Indonesia and extradiated to the Philippines. Her Philippine passport was also cancelled.
Her case has played out as the Philippines and China continue to spar over reefs and outcrops in the South China Sea. While the case was making national headlines in the Philippines, China has remained silent regarding the allegations against her.
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