THE Anti-Money Laundering Council has started its administrative investigation of banks that failed to report the billions of pesos in suspicious transactions of Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators (POGO) being linked with dismissed Bamban, Tarlac Mayor Alice Guo.
Defending the proposed AMLC budget for 2025, Sen. Grace Poe, who chairs the Committee on Finance, said the council has “opened the enforcement action proceedings” against the banks involved in the activities of Guo and POGOs to determine “if they have violated the requirement under the AMLAC.
“The AMLC opened the enforcement action proceedings against those banks involved in Alice Guo’s case to determine if they violated the requirement under AMLC to file STRs (suspicious transaction reports) to AMLC,” Poe said.
“These proceedings are ongoing,” she added.
She said that once the banks are proven to have failed to file STRs, the AMLC will file appropriate charges “where they may be liable for fines ranging from P250,000 to P500,000 per transaction, but not exceeding P10 million to P20 million depending on the attendant circumstances.”
“This is without prejudice to their criminal liability under AMLC,” she said.
Senate deputy minority leader Risa Hontiveros said banks should be meted higher fines because based on the Senate investigations, there were suspicious bank transactions for the construction of the POGO hub in Bamban, Tarlac coursed through Guo’s family businesses without the government even knowing them.
Hontiveros said it was apparent the banks involved did not flag the billions of pesos in transactions.
Senate minority leader Aquilino Pimentel III wants to know why the AMLC did not detect the suspicious transactions, noting that 87 counts of money laundering cases against Guo and her cohorts were filed after the Senate investigations revealed such activities.
“I need an explanation. Why were you not able to detect that before they were detected by the office of Sen. Risa Hontiveros?” Pimentel said.
Poe replied: “Because of the failure of some covered persons to report through STRs.
“And this is also where it will come into play where the bank representative might have to be investigated as well,” she said, adding there is a possibility of connivance between the banks and Guo and her cohorts.
Sen. Joel Villanueva said the “complexity” of the Bamban POGO’s case calls for proactive measures to prevent similar activities from happening in the future.
Poe said this is the reason why the Senate has poured additional funds into the AMLC, to enable it to acquire Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology. She, however, did not provide details.
“Mr. President, AMLC needs support to procure and sustain the Artificial Intelligence project and other significant programs of AMLC like the subscription of security IT software. This is why we added funding under the Senate Committee Report for the Artificial Intelligence Project of AMLC to help them evaluate the great number of suspicious transaction reports that they receive,” Poe said.
She said once the AI technology is acquired, the AMLC will no longer need to manually check the thousands of daily transactions.
“That’s one of the benefits of having AI, to sort through the voluminous number of reports,” she said.
Poe said the AMLC has filed 744 cases of money laundering, civil forfeiture, and administrative cases from 2017 to the third quarter of 2024. She said the council filed 183 cases this year alone, including the 87 cases filed against Guo.
The AMLC’s budget was deemed submitted after senators asked no more questions from the council.
