Philippine police arrest online fraudster “Kingpin” in Luzon – The Diplomat

On Friday, Philippine authorities announced the arrest of a Chinese national they suspect is the leader of a network of illegal Filipino offshore gaming operators (POGOs) involved in human trafficking, online fraud and other crimes.

The suspect, identified as Lin Xunhan, 33, was caught in a raid on Thursday evening in Biñan, a city in Laguna province on the island of Luzon, according to the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission (PAOCC).

The raid was part of a broader government crackdown on illegal Philippine offshore gambling operations (POGOs) linked to a range of criminal activities, including human trafficking, fraud and prostitution.

Speaking to reporters on Friday, Undersecretary Gilbert Cruz, the commission’s executive director, described Lin as “the leader of the POGOs in our country” and claimed that he was involved in suspected fraud operations in the Ilocos region, Central Luzon, Calabarzon, Cebu, etc. been associated. and Metro Manila. In a report submitted to President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on Friday, PAOCC described Lin as “a figure of great concern in the organized crime landscape in the Philippines.”

“Since 2016, Dong has systematically built a network of fraud farms, often using legitimate companies as fronts to conceal his illegal activities,” the PAOCC report said, according to a Rappler report. “While some of these operations have been raided and shut down, many continue to thrive, complicating law enforcement efforts to dismantle his extensive criminal enterprise.”

According to Cruz, Lin’s name was sought in connection with Lucky South 99, a POGO center in Porac, Pampanga province, which was raided and closed by authorities in early June on suspicion of involvement in torture, human trafficking, etc. illegal Fraud activities. Lin, whom investigators also referred to as Lyu Dong or Boss Boga, was arrested along with 12 Chinese nationals and nine Filipino bodyguards.

The PAOCC believes Lin is also linked to fraud operations in the town of Bamban, Tarlac province, linked to Alice Guo, the town’s former mayor.

Guo is the subject of an ongoing Senate investigation over her alleged involvement in money laundering and Chinese-run online fraud operations in Bamban. The investigation began in May after raids on illegal Chinese POGOs operating from properties in Bamban allegedly owned by a company owned by Guo. A raid in March rescued 371 Filipinos and 497 foreigners who police believe were involved in fraud operations.

The investigation into Guo, who is now detained in Pasig City after her arrest in Indonesia in early September, has been marked by a series of dramatic revelations. The most likely scenario is that it is actually a Chinese citizen named Guo Huaping, who was born in the Chinese province of Fujian and only came to the Philippines as a teenager. The PAOCC announced this weekend that it had found a witness who can confirm a connection between Lin and Guo, alleging that both were involved in selling pornographic videos on POGO hub Porac.

The Guo case has led to increased scrutiny of POGOs, which are legal offshore gambling services that offer online gaming to non-Filipino citizens based outside the Philippines. (In practice, most come from mainland China.) POGOs have existed in the Philippines for two decades, but arrived in the country after the election of former President Rodrigo Duterte in 2016 – the same year that PAOCC claims Lin Xunhan – they grew significantly.

Like online gambling operators in other parts of Southeast Asia – particularly Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar – both legal and illegal POGOs have now run fraud operations, typically involving human trafficking and forced labor. In his annual State of the Union address in July, Marcos announced a ban on POGOs, claiming they had “ventured into illegal areas furthest from gambling, such as financial fraud, money laundering, prostitution, human trafficking, kidnapping, brutal torture.” and even murder.” .”

As the crackdown progresses, Philippine authorities are slowly unraveling threads that point to the existence of a vast and complicated criminal network that stretches across the region and may also have nodes with the Chinese security state. Philippine investigators suspect that Alice Guo may also have worked as a Chinese spy, a claim confirmed by Chinese businessman She Zhijiang in a recent interview with Al Jazeera.

She, who is currently detained in Bangkok after her arrest in mid-2022, was quoted as saying that Alice Guo once worked for China’s Ministry of State Security, the main agency that monitors foreign intelligence services. She Zhijiang led the development of New Yatai City, an online gambling and cyber fraud hub in Myanmar’s Karen State, near the border with Thailand.

As long as the Philippine investigation continues, we can expect many more revelations of this kind – but whether these criminal networks will ever be fully exposed remains very questionable.