Who is former mayor Alice Guo and what is known about her arrest?

MONTREAL — Former Philippine mayor Alice Guo, who is accused of links to Chinese crime syndicates and money laundering, arrived in Manila on a charter flight on Friday after being deported from Indonesia.

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

Their case comes at a time when suspicion over China’s activities is growing in the Philippines following the escalation of disputes in the South China Sea, where the two countries have overlapping claims.

Who is Alice Guo?

Guo ran for mayor of Bamban, an agricultural town north of the capital, in 2022 as a Filipino citizen, but law enforcement later discovered that her fingerprints matched those of Chinese citizen Guo Hua Ping.

The Philippine Senate launched an investigation into Guo in May, two months after authorities raided a gambling center that catered to foreign customers, mostly Chinese. The raid, authorities said, uncovered online fraud at a facility built on land partly owned by Guo.

Guo refused to appear at the next hearing in June, citing emotional trauma from her previous attendance, and the Senate subsequently declared her in contempt of court and ordered her arrest.

What crimes are she accused of?

The Philippine Anti-Corruption Bureau removed her as mayor in August due to serious misconduct related to her alleged links to illegal gambling operations in Bamban.

The raid on the gambling center uncovered hundreds of victims of human trafficking, including foreigners. An anti-crime commission subsequently filed charges of human trafficking against Guo.

Philippine authorities last month filed multiple money laundering charges against Guo and her accomplices.

Guo insisted that she was a native Filipino citizen and faced “malicious allegations” and had no knowledge of any criminal activity.

How did Alice Guo escape from the Philippines?

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

The former mayor and her two alleged siblings fled by boat from the Philippines to Malaysia, Shiela Guo, an alleged accomplice who was previously arrested in Indonesia, said at a hearing in the Philippine Senate last week.

How was Alice Guo captured in Indonesia?

The 34-year-old former mayor was arrested by Interpol Indonesia in Tangerang on Tuesday, the Indonesian immigration authority said in a statement.

Through CCTV surveillance, immigration officials found that a Singaporean national had helped Guo book four hotel rooms at a hotel on the Indonesian island of Batam for the three days before her arrest on Tuesday.

Who is Gregor Haas and why is he involved in the case?

According to Indonesian media reports, the authorities in Jakarta had requested a prisoner exchange in which they would receive Australian citizen Gregor Johann Haas, who was being held in the Philippines.

Philippine immigration authorities arrested 46-year-old Haas in May in the city of Bogo in the central province of Cebu.

The arrest was made based on a standing red notice from Interpol in connection with a criminal case pending against him in Indonesia, the Philippine Immigration Office said in a statement on May 19.

Indonesian authorities accuse Haas of having links to the Mexican Sinaloa drug cartel and of attempting to smuggle a shipment of floor ceramics containing over five kilograms of methamphetamine into Indonesia in December 2023.

Haas is being held in an immigration detention facility while awaiting deportation proceedings.

Philippine Justice Secretary Crispin Remulla said on Thursday there was no official request from his Indonesian counterparts for a prisoner exchange, but he knew of the alleged request from media reports. A request for a prisoner exchange, Remulla said, would go through the Foreign Ministry unless he was authorized to coordinate directly with his counterparts in Jakarta.

—Reporting by Neil Jerome Morales and Mikhail Flores