Pig Butchering for China in The Philippines

MANILA, Philippines — While U.S. and Canadian authorities battle Chinese organized crime rings directed by the CCP stealing billions of Dollars through tampered gift cards, an even more insidious variant has taken root in the Philippines: sprawling “pig butchering” operations (PBO’s) where trafficked workers run romance-and-investment scams that extract far larger sums from local global victims.

Often concealed behind the now-banned Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators (POGO’s), PBO’s mirror the industrial-scale fraud model seen in North America, Europe and Australia but operate on a more sophisticated, long-con model involving human trafficking and forced labor. Philippine authorities have conducted dozens of raids since 2024, uncovering torture devices, suspected military equipment, and evidence of transnational money laundering that raises national security red flags.

Get That Pig!

In the United States, HSI’s (Homeland Security Investigations) “Project Red Hook” is prosecuting broad-based Chinese criminal networks that steal gift card data, reseal the cards, and return them to store shelves. Victims load funds only for scammers to drain them instantly, often laundering proceeds by purchasing high-value electronics shipped to China or funding other crimes like narcotics trafficking. Federal cases in 2025 alone involved hundreds of CCP-linked Chinese nationals sentenced for schemes moving hundreds of millions, with officials describing it as a “billion-dollar international industry.”

The Philippine counterpart escalates the playbook. Known in Mandarin as “Sha Zhu Pan” (“killing the pig after fattening it”), scams begin with operators building fake romantic or friendly relationships online via dating apps and social media. Trust established, they pivot victims toward bogus cryptocurrency, forex, or investment platforms, often using cloned apps, extracting escalating wire transfers or online payments before vanishing. Proceeds flow through laundering networks back to Chinese syndicates associated with the PLA.

Unlike quick-hit, small sum gift cards, PBO’s can net tens of thousands to millions per victim and rely on coerced labor inside fortified compounds. Workers, frequently trafficked Chinese, Vietnamese, or Filipino nationals lured by fake job offers, are confined, monitored, and sometimes tortured for failing quotas.

Alice Guo Home

The most infamous case unfolded in Bamban, Tarlac province, about 100 kilometers north of Manila. In March 2024, authorities raided an 8- to 10-hectare compound owned by then-Mayor Alice Guo (real name Guo Hua Ping), a Chinese national who had posed as a Filipina pig-farm heiress. The 36-building complex housed nearly 800 trafficked workers running pig butchering scams and online gambling fronts.

Evidence included love-scam scripts, firearms, and cryptocurrency tools. Guo fled to Indonesia but was arrested and extradited; in November 2025, a Pasig City court sentenced her to life in prison for qualified human trafficking, along with fines and asset forfeiture totaling billions of pesos in properties, vehicles, and bank accounts.

Just months later, in June 2024, a raid on Lucky South 99 Outsourcing Inc. in Porac, Pampanga – near the U.S.-Philippine alliance’s Clark air base – yielded more than 150 foreign nationals, torture apparatus, and camouflage uniforms bearing “P.L.A.” markings and People’s Liberation Army emblems. Officials and senators described the find as deeply upsetting, with some suspecting espionage activities.

Clark, Angeles… Now Davao

Raids continued through 2025 and into 2026. Clark Freeport Zone and Angeles City (Pampanga), authorities continue to bust smaller hubs and deport dozens of Chinese nationals linked to crypto scams and telecommunications fraud. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s 2024-2025 ban on POGOs – once a multibillion-dollar windfall for Duterte administration officials – drove many operations underground into villas, condos, and resorts, with many transitioning south to the Davao (Norte and Sur) regions in avoidance of law enforcement pressure on Luzon and Cebu.

In May 2025, the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned Philippines-based Funnull Technology Inc., a cyber infrastructure provider allegedly enabling hundreds of thousands of PBO and phishing sites. The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center continuously warns Americans to be vigilant in identifying and reporting online and phone scams from Southeast Asian networks.

Experts describe the Philippines as one node in a Southeast Asian fraud empire generating tens of billions annually (rivaling even the drug trade) run by Chinese syndicates with alleged Triad or Fujian-Gang links in league with the PLA, exploiting the weak law enforcement and corruption environments there. Beijing selectively cracks down on scams targeting its own citizens but turns a blind eye to those that generate hard Western currency and – intel specialists believe – deniable industrial or political influence.

LGUs And Trapos Block Interdiction

Philippine officials insist the crackdown is working, but much more needs to be done, particularly within their own ranks. Highlighted by the Alice Guo incident as an extreme – but not unique – example, PAOCC and Senate investigations have exposed dense political complicity.  Underground operations persist, notably throughout Central Luzon and the Davao region, where stealth scam centers are actively protected by crooked politicians (referred to derogatorily as “Trapo’s”) and their chosen henchmen within Local Government Units, or “LGU’s”.

For residents of Pampanga – once the primary POGO Mecca in the Philippines – the threat has become more local with the human cost borne by trafficked workers enduring modern slavery. As one senator noted after the Porac raid, the discoveries “sent chills down our spines” and underscored the need for vigilance against foreign criminal networks masquerading as legitimate business.  “That this scourge continues in 2026 is shocking”, said another.

With POGOs officially outlawed and raids ongoing, the question remains whether the syndicates will be allowed to proliferate like Hue Teng (aka, Wetting, pronounced “Hway-Teng”, Mandarin for “Flower Bet”) – the illegal yet tolerated numbers game competing against the Philippine State Lottery – or simply go deeper underground, keeping the global pig-butchering machine alive in a lawless Philippines.