Funds siphoned off from the Philippines’ flood control projects and converted into cryptocurrency may be linked to online scam syndicates run by offshore gaming operators, an official from the country’s cybercrime unit has revealed.
Renato Paraiso, acting executive director of the Cybercrime Investigation and Coordinating Centre, told This Week in Asia that investigators had uncovered a “definite link” between digital assets tied to the multibillion-peso flood control scandal and cryptocurrency scams carried out by Philippine offshore gaming operators (Pogos).
President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr banned Pogos last year amid public outrage over their alleged involvement in criminal activities. The government has since intensified its crackdown, sentencing former Bamban mayor and Chinese national Alice Guo and seven others to life imprisonment for human trafficking connected to Pogo-linked syndicates.
A preliminary government investigation found that about 545 billion pesos (US$9 billion) had been spent on nearly 10,000 flood control projects since 2022, many of which were later discovered to be substandard or never built.
Lawmakers, public works officials and contractors are alleged to have colluded to siphon off large portions of those funds.
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“There’s a definite link because these are the same exchanges or the same personalities that are converting USDT or cryptocurrency accounts for the people that we are suspecting are involved in Pogo operations, as well as these personalities involved in this flood control scandal,” Paraiso said.