A Philippine trial court has sentenced a former mayor accused of having ties to Chinese criminal syndicates to life imprisonment after finding her guilty of human trafficking, a government anti-crime agency said on Thursday.

Alice Guo ran for mayor in Bamban, an agricultural town north of the capital Manila, as a Filipino citizen, but she was later identified by law enforcement as Chinese national Guo Hua Ping.

“This eagerly awaited ruling is not only a legal victory but also a moral one. It delivers justice to victims, reaffirms the government’s united stance against organised crime,” the Presidential Anti-Organised Crime Commission (PAOCC) said in a statement.

Guo’s lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Guo has previously denied links to criminals and has also maintained that she is a natural-born Philippine citizen.

The Philippine Senate launched a congressional probe into Guo in May last year, two months after a police raid revealed a scam centre operating out of a facility built on land partially owned by Guo. It was one of many such centres to spring up across Southeast Asia in recent years.

The raid uncovered hundreds of trafficked workers including foreign nationals, resulting in a human trafficking complaint against Guo from PAOCC.

The court also convicted seven other individuals for trafficking and sentenced them to life imprisonment, the PAOCC said. The facility was ordered to be forfeited to the government.

Guo’s case has gripped the Philippines, where suspicions about China’s activities have been building as a result of escalating tensions in the South China Sea, in which the two nations have overlapping claims.

The Senate held Guo in contempt and ordered her arrest after she later refused to attend congressional hearings. She fled the country but was later captured in Indonesia and deported to the Philippines in September 2024.

Guo, who was removed from office by the Ombudsman in August 2024 for grave misconduct, also faces other criminal charges including graft, and money laundering.

The controversy surrounding Guo intensified calls for a crackdown on Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators, which are largely run by Chinese nationals catering to clients in China.

These operations thrived during former President Rodrigo Duterte’s administration but later came under heavy scrutiny and were eventually banned by President Ferdinand Marcos.