# ₱14 Billion in Suspicious Transactions, 2,714 People Rescued. The Money Behind Scam Hubs Run Under the Name of Casinos Was on Another Scale > Unlicensed POGO (Philippine offshore gaming operators) outnumbered licensed ones about 6 to 1. Many of the people rescued in raids were Filipinos. I lay out, with sources, the 17.6% unemployment rate during COVID, people sold over debts, a former mayor's conviction, and scattered pieces of money from different origins. - Published: 2026-10-30 - URL: https://abalol.xyz/en/posts/pogo-3-scam-hubs-money/ - Language: en - Tags: philippines, pogo, scam, trafficking, crime - Author: Tomohiro Owada - Site: Tomo's Diary (https://abalol.xyz/llms.txt) --- POGO (Philippine offshore gaming operators) were supposed to be licensed gambling businesses. Yet raids kept turning up scam and human-trafficking hubs. In June 2024, the chairman of PAGCOR (the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation) said there were 250 to 300 unlicensed POGOs, about 6 times the 46 that held licenses ([Inquirer](https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1951406/pogo-crackdown-widens-250-to-300-not-licensed)). I could not find an official figure for the total amount of money that moved around POGO and scams. There are only fragments. ## The year unemployment hit 17.6% In April 2020, the Philippine unemployment rate was 17.6% (final figure; the preliminary one was 17.7%). The number of unemployed was about 7.2 million (7.3 million in the preliminary data). In January it had been 5.3%, and in April of the year before, 5.1% ([PSA](https://psa.gov.ph/content/employment-situation-april-2020)). In Central Luzon, home to Bamban (Tarlac) and Porac (Pampanga), it was 27.3% ([GMA](https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/money/economy/741316/unemployment-soared-record-high-with-7-3m-jobless-last-april-psa/story/)). I found no survey directly showing that Filipinos who lost jobs to COVID went into scam hubs. What I can say alongside it is that later raids found many Filipinos inside the hubs. A prosecutor in the Porac case described the human trafficking as a crime that took advantage of the pandemic, a national disaster ([Philstar](https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2024/09/10/2384277/human-toll-pogos-prosecutors-detail-debt-bondage-torture-forced-labor-pampanga)). ## Who was among the rescued In June 2023, police searched "Xinchuang Network Technology" (formerly Hong Tai) in Las Piñas. The warrant was for violations of the anti-trafficking law. 2,714 people were rescued: 1,528 Filipinos, 600 Chinese, and 183 Vietnamese, 137 Indonesians, 134 Malaysians, 81 Thais and others ([Inquirer](https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1793795/cops-rescue-2714-workers-after-pogo-complex-raid-in-las-pinas)). On March 13, 2024, PAOCC (the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission) and others went into "Zun Yuan Technology" in Bamban. It began when a Vietnamese employee escaped and reported it on February 28, along with information from the Malaysian embassy. 868 people were rescued: 371 Filipinos and 497 foreigners. The site had 36 buildings, and evidence of crypto investment scams and romance scams was found ([Inquirer](https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1918290/over-800-filipino-foreign-pogo-workers-rescued-in-tarlac-raid)). PAGCOR explained that it had issued the company a provisional license, and revoked it right after the raid ([GMA](https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/topstories/nation/909027/pagcor-hands-off-in-local-permit-issuances-to-pogos/story/)). On June 5, 2024, 186 people were rescued from "Lucky South 99" in Porac: 157 foreigners and 29 Filipinos, on a 5.8-hectare site with 46 buildings and a golf course. The company had been raided in September 2022 too, and PAGCOR's list as of August 2023 showed it as one of 32 licensed companies. At the time of the 2024 raid, PAOCC said it had no PAGCOR permit ([Inquirer](https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1948727/pampanga-pogo-linked-to-scams-trafficking-186-rescued-in-raid)). ![Breakdown of people rescued in raids](https://abalol.xyz/images/posts/pogo-3-scam-hubs-money/pogo3-rescued-en.png) ## People sold over debts 14 victims filed complaints in the Porac case: 10 foreigners and 4 Filipinos. During the raid, a Chinese employee with signs of torture and a Chinese man handcuffed to a bed were found. As one example, the prosecutor cited a victim who owed ₱300,000 to ₱400,000 and was not released until it was paid off. When it was nearly paid, he would be resold to another POGO. There was also a Chinese man who ran up a ₱450,000 debt playing mahjong. A PAOCC spokesperson described the pattern: find customers at the casino, lend them money, and sell them when they can't pay back ([Philstar](https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2024/09/10/2384277/human-toll-pogos-prosecutors-detail-debt-bondage-torture-forced-labor-pampanga)). The raid started from a video of a man being beaten. A PAOCC spokesperson said they had received a report that the man had died. There is also a report that the body was cremated ([Inquirer](https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1948959/fwd-man-in-pogo-torture-video-dies)). ## The person who was mayor Alice Guo, the former mayor of Bamban, left the country in July 2024, was detained in Indonesia in September, and was brought back to the Philippines ([Straits Times](https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/courts-crime/3b-money-laundering-convicts-now-accused-of-human-trafficking-in-the-philippines)). On November 20, 2025, the Pasig regional trial court found Guo and three others guilty of qualified human trafficking, and sentenced them to reclusion perpetua (life imprisonment) and a ₱2 million fine ([NBI](https://nbi.gov.ph/press_releases/2025/11212025/9157/)). As the investigation went on, suspicions spread that she might be a Chinese spy ([Inquirer](https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1948727/pampanga-pogo-linked-to-scams-trafficking-186-rescued-in-raid)). That is at the level of suspicion. It is not part of the verdict. ## The fragments of money were on another scale I collected the numbers that can be lined up. In March 2020, the AMLC (Anti-Money Laundering Council) told the Senate that POGO-related transactions in 2017 to 2019 came to ₱54 billion, of which ₱14 billion were "suspicious transactions." The breakdown: ₱4.9 billion for violations of the e-commerce law, ₱4 billion with no basis for the transaction, and so on, with fraud at ₱121 million and drugs at ₱138 million ([Inquirer](https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1237627/amlc-p-14-billion-pogo-transactions-suspicious)). Suspicious transactions are not an amount confirmed to be crime. Senator Gordon pointed out that over the five months from September 2019, 47 people brought in $447 million in cash (₱22.69 billion) from Hong Kong and Singapore. $210 million of that was Chinese. The senator himself said the money had been declared and came in legally. It was presented as a suspicion of money laundering, not an established fact ([Inquirer](https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1236372/447m-alleged-laundered-money-from-pogos-entered-ph-in-5-months)). On Bamban, in July 2024 the AMLC obtained a freeze order on 90 bank accounts, real estate, helicopters and more belonging to Guo and two others ([Philstar](https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2024/07/12/2369617/amlc-freezes-guo-bank-accounts-assets)). At the end of August it charged Guo and 35 others on 87 counts over the laundering of about ₱7 billion used to build the POGO facility. Senator Gatchalian estimated the total construction cost of the facility at up to ₱6 billion ([Inquirer](https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1978568/senator-flags-amlc-banks-over-guo-transactions)). Two people convicted in Singapore in a money-laundering case of roughly S$3 billion were named in the Philippine complaint in the Bamban trafficking case in September 2024. The company that owns the land under the Bamban facility was created in 2019 by Guo, these two and others ([Straits Times](https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/courts-crime/3b-money-laundering-convicts-now-accused-of-human-trafficking-in-the-philippines)). There are Chinese-side numbers too. In August 2020, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) estimated that Chinese people spend about $145 billion a year on illegal online gambling, and that many of those sites are run from the Philippines ([SCMP](https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3098729/manilas-big-bet-chinas-online-gambling-habit-gives-beijing-post)). That is not money that came into the Philippines. ![Fragments of money from different sources](https://abalol.xyz/images/posts/pogo-3-scam-hubs-money/pogo3-money-en.png) There is no official total. The AMLC's figure is for transactions, the senator's is for cash brought in, SCMP's is an estimate of what Chinese players bet, and the Singapore figure belongs to a different case. They are different in kind, so they can't be added up. Set beside the POGO tax revenue we saw last time, ₱6.42 billion in 2019, they show how large each fragment is. Money pouring in from across the sea may well have been on another scale. The fragments make you imagine so. But nobody knows the total that can actually be verified.