Indonesia arrests a fugitive former Filipino town mayor wanted for illegal online gaming scams

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — A dismissed town mayor who fled the Philippines after being accused of helping establish an illegal online gaming and scam center catering mostly to clients in China has been arrested near Indonesia’s capital, officials said Wednesday.

Indonesian authorities arrested Alice Guo at a house in Jakarta’s satellite city of Tangerang just before midnight on Tuesday, according to Khrisna Murti, chief of the international division of the National Police.

Guo was in custody and awaiting deportation to the Philippines, Murti said, adding that her arrest was the result of “cooperation between Indonesian and Filipino’s police.”

Filipino President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. thanked the Indonesian authorities.

“Let this serve as a warning to those who attempt to evade justice,” Marcos said and added that arrangements were being made to bring Guo back to the Philippines where she faces a slew of criminal charges.

After Guo fled the Philippines in July, she was tracked in Malaysia and Singapore before turning up in Indonesia. Two companions, who reportedly slipped out of the Philippines with her without going through normal immigration and clearing procedures, were recently arrested in Indonesia.

Guo ran as a Filipino candidate in 2022 elections and won as mayor of the rural town of Bamban in Tarlac province north of Manila. She was accused of helping establish a massive complex with several buildings near the town hall as a hub for an illegal online gambling and scam outfit that catered mostly to clients in China, where gambling is forbidden.

A Senate committee ordered Guo arrested after she refused to appear in hearings looking into the illegal gambling business that flourished under Marcos’s predecessor, Rodrigo