Illegal Chinese syndicates: A serious security threat

There are clear indications that illegal gambling operators have been, and continue to be, used extensively for the infiltration of Chinese nationals that are engaged in criminal activities and as such, pose serious national security concerns.

I spoke with several Philippine congressmen who are now visiting in Washington, DC and they told me that they are extremely alarmed at how serious the situation has become based on the disturbing information they have been able to unearth from the series of congressional inquiries that various committees have been conducting.

Major scrutiny regarding the connection between illegal gambling and criminality came about when authorities raided a 10-hectare Chinese complex in Bamban, Tarlac last March over reports that it was engaged in human trafficking and was being used as a hub for scamming, espionage and cyberattacks against government agencies. The raid resulted in the discovery of hundreds of foreign workers – most of them Chinese – who have no valid work permits. Also seized were SIM cards, mobile phones and other gadgets that are used for online scamming activities. The raiding team also found high powered firearms, torture chambers and vaults containing passports and documents that indicated a possible link between Alice Guo and the illegal gambling hub that was located just behind the Bamban municipal office.

The subsequent Senate hearing put the spotlight on the seeming mystery behind the identity of Alice Guo, whose nationality came into question after the Philippine Statistics Authority flagged “discrepancies” in Guo’s birth certificate, with the National Bureau of Investigation also revealing that her fingerprints matched that of a Chinese national named Guo Hua Ping who entered the country in 2003 through a Special Investor’s Resident Visa.

Despite her denials, authorities have been able to uncover the connection between Guo and the Tarlac gaming complex, with billions of pesos channeled into her 36 bank accounts that are allegedly being used to finance illegal gambling activities – a “clear case of money laundering,” according to Senator Win Gatchalian, who pointed out that the profits reported in the Guo family corporations’ income statements were just about P100,000 to P200,000.

According to the congressmen I spoke with, what is really worrisome is that a syndicate seems to be facilitating the issuance of birth certificates, passports, driver’s licenses and other government-issued identification papers for Chinese nationals posing as Filipinos. Reports say that the going rate for obtaining the whole package – a birth certificate, passport and driver’s license – can range from P300,000 to as much as P500,000, obviously through a syndicate that facilitates the process.

Just last month, the National Bureau of Investigation disclosed that since 2016, more than 1,200 individuals believed to be Chinese nationals were able to obtain Philippine birth certificates through “late registration” – just like what Alice Guo did – from a municipality in Davao del Sur. It’s not farfetched that certain local government employees, in particular those working at the local civil registry, may be part of the syndicate since they are the ones transmitting documents to the Philippine Statistics Authority that issues official birth certificates.

Intelligence sources clearly show that the Bureau of Immigration is the root cause of the problem, with allegations that corrupt members of the BI are responsible for the influx of Chinese nationals who were then able to obtain Filipino birth certificates and IDs. People still remember the “pastillas bribery scam” that was exposed in 2020, with corrupt BI officials allowing entry to Chinese and other foreigners without going through screening at the airports for a measly P10,000.

Just imagine – illegal aliens can just go to any obscure town or municipality, file for late registration of birth to obtain (fake) Philippine citizenship that would enable them to purchase property and put up businesses anywhere in the country. Interestingly, a lot of illegal gambling hubs seem to be located in areas near military facilities. The gambling complex in Bamban, Tarlac, for instance, is very near the Clark International Airport in Angeles City where a Philippine Air Force facility is located. In Quezon City, reports say that there are Chinese casinos and gambling hubs near the Armed Forces of the Philippines headquarters in Camp Aguinaldo and the Philippine National Police headquarters in Camp Crame.

As early as December last year, Surigao del Norte Congressman Ace Barbers had sounded the alarm about Chinese nationals buying up vast tracts of land across the country allegedly for their drug trafficking activities. He also said a lot of the properties purchased were near EDCA sites and major air and seaports, possibly with the connivance of Filipino “enablers.”

Barbers, who chairs the House committee on dangerous drugs, described illegal gambling hubs as the “worst curse” to ever befall the government system. While legal gambling operators were allowed to operate because of the revenue they were supposed to bring in, unmitigated illegal operators have become “a monster almost overnight” – linked to spying, hacking, cybercrimes, murders, torture, human and drug trafficking, money laundering and other unspeakable crimes.

Obviously, the money from these gambling activities makes it easy for these syndicates to corrupt officials and “buy influence in government” or, in the case of Alice Guo, even become part of government themselves by becoming elected officials, raising suspicion about the presence of sleeper cells and Trojan horses that seek to undermine the government.

As Congressman Barbers said, it’s like a “creeping invasion” – which is why concerned government agencies must work together to accomplish the President’s order to cease illegal gambling operations immediately – and get rid of these syndicates that have become a serious security threat to our country and our way of life.

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