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The Philippines’ money laundering watchdog has announced it is coordinating a multi-agency probe into the alleged laundering by two casino junkets of $3.6m in ransom funds for a businessman who was murdered despite payment.
The Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) said in a statement on Monday (May 12) that it is working with police, gambling regulator PAGCOR, casino operators, the central bank, the nation’s Securities and Exchange Commission, and foreign governments to trace and seize the funds and apprehend suspects.
Police said earlier that businessman Anson Que and his driver, Armanie Pabillo, were strangled to death and found dumped in bags by the side of a road in Rizal Province, east of Manila, on April 9.
Three male suspects in the double murder case are in custody. A female suspect is at large and police have offered a reward for information leading to her arrest.
Police on May 5 said casino junkets 9 Dynasty Group and White Horse Club are suspected of laundering about 200m pesos ($3.6m) in Philippine and US currency that Que’s family had paid for the release of the men.
Between them, the junkets operated at the Solaire, Okada Manila and Newport World Resorts casinos in Entertainment City. They have since shut down operations.
Police are yet to confirm the family’s account of the transaction and its size.
The AMLC, citing other agency evidence, said on Monday that the scheme “utilised e-wallets intended exclusively for casino gaming, shell accounts, and cryptocurrency to obscure the money trail.
“The AMLC received reports that 9 Dynasty Group and White Horse Club officially ended their junket operations in most, if not all, Philippine casinos on [May 7] —alongside 9 Dynasty’s reported announcement of its exit from the Philippine market,” it said.
“However, the AMLC remains steadfast in its commitment to probe their alleged money laundering activities,” including the involvement of VIP customers, it said.
Police spokeswoman Jean Fajardo said 9 Dynasty Group had been using e-wallets without authorisation from the central bank or the AMLC.
She named the junket’s boss as Chinese national Li Duan Wang, also known as Mark Ong, a long-time resident of the Philippines who made his fortune from gambling operations, real estate and cryptocurrency and whose operations extend into Japan, South Korea, Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand.
Ong was at the centre of a peculiar debate in Congress in which anti-gambling Senator Risa Hontiveros demanded that his citizenship application be denied, because of his previous links to now-banned POGO (foreign-facing online gambling) operations.
Despite overwhelming support in the Senate for Ong, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. vetoed the measure on April 11, citing “alarming and revealing warnings raised by our relevant national agencies that find [Ong’s] character and influence to be full of ominous and dire consequences, if not of a clear and present danger”.
Police and PAGCOR have yet to issue ownership details for the White Horse Club.
With foreign government assistance, as of Sunday, around $206,000 in diverted ransom money has been frozen in foreign accounts, Fajardo said.
But she said the rapid distribution of funds through multiple e-wallets and cryptocurrency accounts means that most of the money will be difficult to recover, with at least one third of the total already cashed out in Cambodia as “USDT”, a Stablecoin also known as Tether.
Fajardo added that the USDT account in Cambodia had previously been identified by U.S. law enforcement authorities as a likely money laundering channel.
The scandal is the worst involving Philippine casino junkets since North Koreans hacked the Bangladesh central bank’s U.S. Federal Reserve account in New York in 2016, allowing Chinese bagmen to launder most of the $81m in funds that they brought into Manila’s casinos.
The scandal is yet another blemish on Philippine financial and regulatory institutions, with PAGCOR and other agencies having worked with the junkets for years.
The AMLC, meanwhile, must now moderate its delight at the Philippines’ removal from the Financial Action Task Force’s grey list in February, knowing that the latest homicides are damaging for the nation’s reputation in regulating sectors with high-risk transactions.
Robert Ace Barbers, chair of the House of Representatives Committee on Dangerous Drugs, said last week that the incident betrays structural weaknesses in financial governance that pose a national security threat.
“This is no longer just about ransom,” he said. “It’s about a vast shadow economy of crime that’s infiltrating and abusing our financial system.
“What we’re dealing with is a deeply entrenched network of foreign syndicates using the Philippines as a safe haven for financial crimes.
“These are not isolated incidents. Junkets and POGOs have become channels for money laundering, kidnapping and possibly even espionage. It’s a toxic mix that’s endangering the safety of our people and the integrity of our financial and national security systems,” he said.
