Assignment: Who is Alice Guo?
The Documentary Podcast
BBC
4.3 • 2.6K Ratings
🗓️ 25 March 2025
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The global online scamming industry is said to be worth some $500 billion a year. It operates in secret, in complexes hidden behind high fences in countries all over the world. It is a particular problem in the Philippines, where much of the industry is run by Chinese criminal organisations.
The scammers, whose job it is to persuade their victims to part with their hard-earned money, are often themselves the victims of crime, people trafficked across borders by gangsters and held prisoner in these “scam hubs”, forced to work.
It is a particular problem in the Philippines, where, in March 2024 the police raided a compound in a small town north of the capital, Manila. There they found several hundred people working. The spotlight immediately turned on the mayor of the town, Alice Guo, a colourful and energetic 32-year-old, who owned some of the land on which the compound was built.
We investigate the allegations against the former mayor who has now been charged with people trafficking, money laundering and tax evasion. There is a further, more lurid, and unproven allegation that she is a spy for China. We ask what effect this affair has had on an already tense relationship between the Philippines and China.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | A young woman wakes up in bed, stretches and reaches for her mobile phone. |
| 0:06.9 | She plays with her dog, who's small, white, and fluffy, and goes by cash. |
| 0:13.0 | And then she addresses the camera. |
| 0:17.4 | She's in her early 30s, with long long dark hair and big round glasses. |
| 0:23.2 | This is Alice Guo. |
| 0:25.1 | And what you're hearing comes from a video on her YouTube channel. |
| 0:28.5 | Let's go! |
| 0:31.6 | It looks a lot like your average lifestyle vlog, but this is political. |
| 0:36.8 | The mayor of a small provincial town in the Philippines |
| 0:39.5 | connecting with her constituents. It's a small farming town about two hours north of Manila, |
| 0:45.4 | called Banban. What's unusual here is a cluster of gleaming office blocks in a field |
| 0:51.1 | behind a high wall. Last March, the police conducted a midnight raid on this compound |
| 0:57.3 | and found around 300 foreign nationals working inside. This compound is what is known in the Philippines |
| 1:04.7 | as a pogo, which stands for Philippine offshore gaming operator. Pogos are online casinos, which were set up to |
| 1:13.8 | allow people in China, where gambling is illegal, to bet online. But nowadays, some of these |
| 1:20.7 | pogos are simply a front for serious criminal enterprises. Welcome to the documentary from the BBC World Service. |
| 1:29.7 | I'm Jay Beruzi. |
| 1:30.9 | And I'm Tony Han from the World Service Global China Unit. |
| 1:34.5 | In this edition of assignment, |
| 1:36.5 | we're finding out how the mayor of a small town in the Philippines |
| 1:39.6 | finds herself facing charges |
| 1:41.7 | that could see her spending the rest of her life in prison. |
... |
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