Manila (AFP) - A Chinese woman who faked Philippine nationality to become a town mayor was sentenced Thursday to life in prison on human trafficking charges, a Manila regional court said.

Alice Guo, who served as mayor of a town north of the capital, was found guilty of overseeing a Chinese-operated online gambling centre where hundreds of people were forced to run scams or risk torture.

The sprawling complex, which included office buildings, luxury villas and a large swimming pool, was raided in March 2024 after a Vietnamese worker escaped and called the police.

More than 700 Filipinos, Chinese, Vietnamese, Malaysians, Taiwanese, Indonesians and Rwandans were found on site, along with documents allegedly showing that Guo was president of a company that owned the compound.

Although elected mayor of Bamban town, the site of the scam centre, a Manila court ruled in June that Guo, 35, was “undisputedly a Chinese citizen” and never eligible for the position.

Guo and seven other defendants, all of whom appeared via videolink, were sentenced to life in prison on Thursday, state prosecutor Olivia Torrevillas said outside a regional courthouse in Manila.

“After over just one year, the court… gave us a favourable decision. Alice (Guo) was convicted along with seven other co-accused. Life imprisonment,” Torrevillas said without revealing the names of Guo’s co-defendants.

Documents later released by the court identified the seven others as Jaimielyn Santos Cruz, Rachelle Malonzo Carreon, Walter Wong Rong, Wang Weili, Wuli Dong, Nong Ding Chang and Lang Xu Po.

Guo was arrested by Indonesian police in September 2024 after fleeing the Philippines.

She still faces cases involving charges of money laundering and graft.

- ‘Victory against corruption’ -

Senator Risa Hontiveros, who had led a Senate investigation into Guo, called Thursday’s decision a “victory against corruption, human trafficking, cybercrime, and many other transnational crimes”.

In her statement, she went on to pledge to continue investigating “the full extent of Chinese intelligence operations in our country”.

The Chinese embassy did not immediately return calls seeking comment.

The transnational scam industry has ballooned in Southeast Asia in recent years, with thousands of scammers estimated to be involved.

Victims in the wider region were conned out of up to $37 billion in 2023, according to a UN report, which said global losses were likely “much larger”.

The centres flourished in the Philippines under former president Rodrigo Duterte after the government regulator was given the right to issue operating licences nationwide.

President Ferdinand Marcos announced a ban on offshore gambling operations amid mounting public fury over the Guo case in 2024, ordering foreign nationals working at the sites out of the country.