An infrastructure-oriented think-tank has urged President Rodrigo Duterte to order a comprehensive cybersecurity and money laundering audit of all Philippine Offshore Gaming Operations in the country.
“With President Duterte standing firm on allowing POGOs to operate despite Beijing’s state-level request to ban Chinese-led gaming operations, Malacañang should now order state agencies involved in preventing cybercrime and money laundering to assess the risks posed by POGO activities,” Infrawatch PH convenor Terry Ridon said.
Ridon, a former House ICT committee member, said the third-party service provider engaged by the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. to audit POGOs is grossly insufficient in view of the state-level cyber fraud and laundering concerns raised by Beijing.
“State-level concerns warrant a state-level response led by government law enforcement agencies. Government cannot rely on a private third-party auditor to address cyber fraud and money laundering undertaken by transnational criminal syndicates,” he said.
“It should be noted that what is subjected to public scrutiny are not only POGO licensees but the entire POGO industry led by Pagcor and other authorized agencies. Correspondingly, an entity engaged by Pagcor will be insufficient, if not unacceptable,” Ridon added.
Ridon, who studied cybersecurity at the Harvard Kennedy School, said the government should investigate whether POGOs use cryptocurrencies to skirt money laundering controls for casino operations.
“Cryptocurrencies are currently not subject to any reporting mechanism for money laundering. Casino money laundering controls are limited only to cash transactions involving an amount in excess of five million pesos or its equivalent in any other currency,” Ridon said.
“But the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas explicitly declares that cryptocurrencies ‘do not have legal tender status.’ As such, a cryptocurrency equivalent of more than five million pesos per transaction is able to enter-and-leave the Philippine financial system without notice and limit by Philippine authorities,” he added.
Chinese-owned and operated cryptocurrency companies servicing POGOs, he said, have set up offices in Metro Manila’s financial hubs.