Police raid the POGO compound in Bamban, Tarlac

MANILA — Senators on Thursday renewed their call for President Marcos to ban Philippine offshore gaming operator (POGO) firms, citing their threat to national security and ties to organized crime.

Senators made this call after holding an executive session on Wednesday about the illegal activities involving POGOs, such as money laundering, human trafficking and financial scams.

The closed-door session was attended by representatives from intelligence and law enforcement agencies who all agreed that POGOs should be banned for their criminal activities, Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian said during the Kapihan sa Senado forum yesterday.

Without disclosing details of the discussion, Gatchalian said it was established that offshore gaming hubs are being used as cover by local and foreign criminal syndicates to launder dirty money from abroad and to traffic victims into working for them and perpetuate digital scams.

“I am shaken because our intelligence agencies were able to confirm our worst fear – that corruption due to POGOs has become entrenched, and that its influence has expanded into politics, law enforcement, and immigration,” Gatchalian said in Filipino.

“It is a scary scenario that the money from foreign criminal syndicates is being laundered here to fund local criminal syndicates. These evil elements are starting to join forces,” he added.

He cited the case of Zun Yuan Technology in Bamban, Tarlac, a raided POGO facility being linked to suspended town mayor Alice Guo. Her name appeared in the local permit application and electricity bills paid for the POGO.

While Guo denied the allegations, documents would link her to illegal activities, Gatchalian said.

The compound where the POGO facility was built is under Baofo Land Development, which Guo used to own with two incorporators Zhang Ruijin and Lin Baoying, who are also involved in Singapore’s biggest money laundering case worth $3 billion.

Gatchalian and Sen. Risa Hontiveros have urged the National Security Council (NSC) to elevate to the President their call to ban POGOs as a threat to national security.

“Our suggestion to the NSC is to relay to the President, who is its chairman, our concern that POGOs should be banned because these pose a national security threat,” Gatchalian said.

Hontiveros said the NSC should recommend the total ban of POGOs because of their illegal revenue flows traced to money laundering.

“We expect the NSC – the mandate of which is national security – to bring our concerns to the President and call for banning POGOs as a threat to national security,” Hontiveros said in a press briefing on Wednesday.

For his part, Senate Minority Leader Koko Pimentel said POGOs can be ordered banned in the Philippines for the simple reason that offshore gaming operations violate anti-gambling laws.

“There is no need to complicate this matter of the POGOs. They should be banned as a matter of public policy for being against our national interest,” he added.

The facility described by the Philippine National Police (PNP) as a scam hub raided by law enforcement authorities in Porac, Pampanga on Tuesday night is connected with the POGO firm that was shut down in Bamban, Tarlac.

“There was evidence recovered that says the incorporators of Lucky South are involved in illegal activities at Baofu compound,” PNP spokesperson Col. Jean Fajardo said in a news briefing at Camp Crame.

She added another POGO hub of Lucky South 99 was also raided and closed down in September 2022 in Angeles City in Pampanga, where 42 foreigners who were supposed victims of torture and other human rights abuses were rescued.

Asked if the Porac facility has links with Guo, Fajardo said: “I am not in the position to say if she has connections. The information provided to us is (about) Lucky South 99.”

Meanwhile, Porac municipal police station chief Lt. Col. Palmyra Guardaya was relieved from her post and replaced by her deputy as part of a pending investigation to determine if local police committed lapses in failing to monitor the illegal activities within the scam farm, Fajardo said.

According to Fajardo, the facility has been operating since last year even if it failed to secure a license to operate from the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp.

Another matter which the PNP is also looking into is whether there is liability on the part of the municipal government.