East Asia

Philippines files money-laundering case against fugitive ex-mayor Alice Guo

Guo and her co-conspirators were alleged to have laundered more than 100 million pesos (US$1.8 million) in proceeds from criminal activities, the council said.

The council also sought to forfeit 6 billion pesos worth of assets including real estate properties, luxury vehicles and a helicopter that Guo and her associates accumulated through alleged illegal activities.

Lawyers of Alice Guo and another respondent, Sheila Guo, did not immediately respond to requests for comment outside office hours on Friday.

Guo, who was recently removed from office by the local government ombudsman, has fled the country, travelling to Malaysia and Singapore last month and Indonesia this month using her Philippine passport, the Philippine anti-crime agency said.

The Senate’s investigation began in May after authorities raided a casino in Guo’s sleepy farming town of Bamban in March, uncovering what the authorities said were scams being perpetrated from a facility built on land partially owned by the former mayor.

Guo’s case comes at a time of growing Philippine suspicion about China’s activities following an increasingly tense dispute over reefs and shoals in the busy waterway of the South China Sea, where both nations have overlapping claims.

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