Who Is Philippine Ex-Mayor Alice Guo And Why She Has Been Arrested

Former Philippines mayor Alice Guo, accused of ties to Chinese criminal syndicates and money laundering, arrived in Manila on Friday on a chartered flight after being deported from Indonesia.

Guo, also known as Chinese national Guo Hua Ping, was arrested in the Indonesian city of Tangerang near the capital of Jakarta on Tuesday.

Her case has gripped the Philippines at a time of growing suspicion about China's activities following an escalation of disputes in the South China Sea where the two nations have overlapping claims.

Guo ran for mayor of Bamban, an agricultural town north of the capital, as a Philippine citizen in 2022. But law enforcement authorities later found her fingerprints matched those of a Chinese national, Guo Hua Ping.

The Philippine Senate opened a congressional probe into Guo in May, two months after authorities raided a gambling hub catering to offshore clients who are mostly Chinese. The raid uncovered what authorities described as online scams inside a facility built on land that Guo partially owned. 

Guo refused to appear at subsequent hearings in June, citing emotional trauma from her previous attendance. That led the senate to cite her in contempt and ordered her arrest.

The Philippines' anti-graft office removed her as mayor in August due to grave misconduct over her alleged ties to illegal gaming operations in Bamban.

The raid on the gambling hub uncovered hundreds of trafficked workers including foreign nationals, which triggered a human trafficking complaint against Guo from an anti-crime commission.

Philippine authorities filed several counts of money laundering against Guo and her accomplices last month.

Guo has insisted she is a natural-born Philippine citizen facing "malicious accusations", and had no knowledge of criminality.

Guo fled the country in July, travelling to Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia using her Philippine passport, the Philippine anti-crime agency said.

The former mayor and her two supposed siblings fled the Philippines by boat to Malaysia, Sheila Guo, an alleged accomplice who was arrested earlier in Indonesia, told a Philippine senate hearing last week. 

The 34-year-old former mayor was apprehended‭ by‭