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Philippine authorities have arrested a Chinese national suspected of running an extensive network of criminal fronts in the country, a special task force said Friday.
The suspect, identified as Lin Xunhan, and 12 others were caught as part of a government crackdown against businesses such as illegal Philippine offshore gaming operations (POGOs). Such businesses serve as fronts for criminal activities, including human trafficking and prostitution, officials said.
“He is… the kingpin of the POGOs in our country,” Undersecretary Gilbert Cruz, the commission’s executive director, told reporters. “He came here in 2016. Since then, he’s set up POGOs in the regions and here in Metro Manila.”
Lin and the others were nabbed during a Thursday evening raid in Biñan, a town south of Manila. Nine Filipino security escorts of Lin’s group were also arrested, according to the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission (PAOCC).
Lin (also known as “Boss Boga” and Lyu Dong) was among those wanted for allegedly operating Lucky South 99, a POGO hub in Pampanga province that was raided and shut down in June.
Authorities said they arrested Lin based on an immigration order issued after the raid on Lucky South. Officials did not provide details about the charges against Lin and the other 12.
Lin’s group was under intense surveillance for the past eight months, with police describing his criminal enterprise as spanning multiple regions in the Philippines, Cruz said.
Apart from Lucky South, Lin also operated in Manila and an area south of the Philippine capital, the commission said. It also said that since 2016, Lin built a network of scam operations that were often fronted by legal businesses.
The successful operations of these scam businesses employed a “sophisticated operational strategy” to evade police crackdowns, it said.
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POGOs are online gambling firms that cater to foreign customers, especially nationals from China, where gambling is illegal. But some POGOs, authorities said, are illegal and serve as fronts for criminal operations, including human trafficking, scams, and other activities.
Such operations are very similar to scam businesses widely reported in other Southeast Asian countries such as Thailand and Cambodia.
POGOs were encouraged by the government of former President Rodrigo Duterte (2016-2022), who opened the Philippine economy to Chinese investors. In July, Duterte's successor, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., ordered all POGOs shut down after several of the companies were allegedly involved in scams, torture and other crimes.
At their peak, POGOs hired more than 300,000 Chinese workers, government statistics showed.
The crackdown on criminal fronts has gained prominence lately, through last month's high-profile arrest of Alice Guo, the dismissed mayor of a town in he northern Philippines where one of these gaming hubs operated.
Guo had fled the country for Indonesia to evade grilling by the Senate, which had been investigating the illegal activities of POGOs but was later arrested and extradited to the Philippines.
Gerard Carreon and Jeoffrey Maitem contributed to this report from Manila and Davao City, southern Philippines. BenarNews is an RFA-affiliated online news organization.