Indonesia deports Alice Guo, who fled to the Philippines and is accused of criminal connections

• Indonesia ready to deport fugitive former mayor
• Accusation of money laundering and links to Chinese criminals
• Philippine President praises cooperation with Indonesia
• Guo is to be handed over to law enforcement and the Senate upon his return

MANILA/JAKARTA — Indonesia will deport a fugitive former mayor to the Philippines on suspicion of having links to Chinese crime syndicates and laundering more than 100 million pesos ($1.8 million), Jakarta's justice minister said Wednesday.

Alice Guo, also known as Chinese national Guo Hua Ping, is wanted by the Philippine Senate for refusing to appear before a congressional investigation into her alleged criminal ties.

Guo, who says she is a native Filipino citizen, denies the allegations and calls them “malicious.”

RELATED: Manila: Indonesia arrests fugitive Filipino Alice Guo

The Indonesian minister said Guo would be deported to the Philippines, but the date of her return had not yet been determined.

“(The timing) depends on the results of the police investigation,” Minister Supratman Andi Agtas told Reuters.

Guo was arrested along with a Chinese monk and a former Chinese police officer helped her escape from the Philippines, Supratman said, without giving details.

Her lawyer, Stephen David, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The case comes at a time when suspicion of China's activities is growing in the Philippines and disputes over the country's claims to the busy waterway in the South China Sea are intensifying.

Authorities in Manila, including judicial and immigration officials, had previously confirmed Guo's arrest in Tangerang, near the Indonesian capital Jakarta.

“The close cooperation between our two governments made this arrest possible,” Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said in a statement, adding that Guo's return would be completed on Wednesday.

“The arm of the law is long and will reach you,” he said, warning that the perpetrators' efforts to evade justice would be in vain.

After her return, Guo, who had cut her hair short to disguise herself, will be handed over to law enforcement authorities and then to the Senate, Jaime Santiago, director of the National Investigation Bureau, said at a press conference.

Philippine law enforcement agencies, including the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC), jointly filed multiple money laundering charges against Guo and 35 others with the Department of Justice last month.

They accused Guo and her co-conspirators of laundering more than 100 million pesos ($1.8 million) worth of criminal proceeds.

Guo ran as a Filipino citizen, but it later turned out that her fingerprints matched those of Chinese citizen Guo Hua Ping.

Guo was dismissed from her post as mayor of Bamban town in Tarlac province and fled the country in July. Using her Philippine passport, she travelled to neighbouring Malaysia and Singapore before travelling to Indonesia in August, the anti-crime agency said.

The Senate launched an investigation in May after a raid on a casino in Bamban in March uncovered fraud, according to law enforcement officials, carried out from a facility built on land it partly owned.

(1 USD = 56.50 Philippine Pesos)

— Reporting by Mikhail Flores and Neil Jerome Morales in Manila, Ananda Teresia in Jakarta; Editing by John Mair and Clarence Fernandez